Pedagogical Department of Primary Education
The Pedagogical Department of Primary Education of the University of Thessaly was founded in 1985 (Government Gazette 113/31-5-1985) and began to accept the first students from the academic year 1988-89 (Government Gazette 40 / 1-2-1988).
According to the current legislation, the Department seeks:
- To cultivate and promote the pedagogical sciences through academic and applied teaching and research
- To provide its graduates with the necessary resources that will ensure their adequate training for their scientific and professional careers
- To contribute to raising the level and meeting the growing needs of education with respect to pedagogical issues
- To contribute to the treatment and solution of pedagogical problems in general
In addition to the traditional professional outlet, private Primary Schools (with their ever-increasing demands), the graduates of the Pedagogical Department of Primary Education can work, among others, in children’s centers, youth centers, childcare centers, cultural organizations, children’s camps, children’s libraries, museums, mass media and producers of educational material.
The Program of Undergraduate Studies of the Department is determined by the Assembly after a proposal of the curriculum committee of the Department.
This Program includes semester courses, internship in the collaborating primary schools and an optional bachelor thesis. The courses are divided in the following categories: compulsory, elective compulsory, and free elective.
Compulsory courses include basic subjects and the internship, aiming at providing a common basic training to all the students of the Department. For registering for certain compulsory courses, there are prerequisite courses, in which the students must have been successfully examined in order to have the right to declare the first ones. The students of the Department have to declare all the compulsory courses and to be examined in them, while, in case of failure in the examination of a compulsory course they cannot replace it with another one.
Elective compulsory courses are elective courses that aim to further investigate aspects of a specific subject, giving to the students the opportunity to attend subjects that meet their personal interests. Elective compulsory courses are courses that students choose from thematic cycles and which have the possibility to replace in the next semester, if they fail the respective exam. It is emphasized that the students can only register for the courses that correspond to their study semester. To receive their degrees, the students must choose a minimum number of elective compulsory courses per thematic cycle.
The free elective courses are elective courses of the Department from any thematic cycle or elective courses from other Departments of the University of Thessaly that have been accepted by the Department.