In Greece, education is provided free of charge at all three levels of education, primary, secondary and higher education, and is funded primarily through the state budget and resources of the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs. The state budget consists of two parts: 

• the Ordinary Budget covering operating expenses and the 
• Public Investment Budget that finances the Public Investment Program (PIP) for the country's development policy with projects that contribute to its growth and modernization on a long-term basis, covering infrastructure costs (buildings, equipment, co-financed actions, etc.). The PIP is divided into the national part financed from purely national resources and the co-financed part financed from national and EU resources or other organisms. Law 4635/2019 (A 167) established the National Development Program (PSC) for the monitoring and control of the interventions financed from the national resources of the Public Investment Program (PIP). The Ministry of Education prepares the Sectoral Development Program (TPA) in its area of responsibility and thus can plan on time the projects that correspond to its policies as well as finance them. The Sectoral Development Program of YPAITH was approved and activated on July 26, 2021 and its programming period has a duration of five years. More information can be found here. 

Adult education and training is also funded through the state budget and resources of the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs with the largest share being covered by the co-financed part of the PIP through the implementation of the NSRF operational programs. Early childhood education and care is provided in infant care (vrefikoi stathmoi), infant/child care (vrefonipiakoi stathmoi) and child care centres (paidikoi stathmoi) within the competence of Municipalities  and funding mainly from the state budget through resources of the Ministry of Interior allocated for this purpose in the Municipalities of the country. Private expenditure on education covers educational services provided by private schools, which operate in parallel to Primary and Secondary Education public schools but also private education offered by private Vocational Training Institutes (Institouta Epangelmatikis Katartisis –IEK) and Colleges in adult education and private structures of early childhood education and care. Household expenses cover, on one hand, the cost for tutorial services provided by private institutions, which offer parallel teaching of school subjects and foreign language courses and on the other hand, the cost for private tuition or other privately instructed activities. The table below shows the total allocation for funding education included in the ordinary budget and the Program of Public Investment for the financial year 2021, at current prices:

TOTAL APPROPRIATION

The tables below show in detail the distribution of costs at each educational level according to the appropriations entered in the Ordinary and the Public Investment budget:

Source: State budget 2021. 

The table below shows the budget of the Ministry’s Sectoral Development Program which amounts to six hundred and twenty (620) million euros, according to the approved National Development Program for the years 2021-2025:

Source: Sectoral Development Program