Greece inaugurated the new 2nd Gymnasio of Lagkadas on Sunday, a bioclimatic and fully accessible school complex, in a ceremony attended by Infrastructure and Transport Minister Christos Dimas, Deputy Interior Minister for Macedonia and Thrace Kostas Gioulekas, and Deputy Education, Religious Affairs and Sports Minister Nikolaos Papaioannou.
The school is part of a wider project to study, finance, build, maintain and manage 17 new school units across the Region of Central Macedonia through a Public-Private Partnership, or PPP. The new schools are being developed across nine municipalities and will together have capacity for around 5,000 students.
The 2nd Gymnasio of Lagkadas is the fourth school from the project to open in Thessaloniki, following the 1st Lyceum of Polichni, the General Lyceum of Efkarpia and the 5th Elementary School of Ampelokipoi, which have already been inaugurated and handed over.
Design and facilities
The new building covers a total area of 3,154 square metres and was designed to create a quality, functional and energy-efficient educational environment for students and staff. It is arranged over a basement, ground floor and upper floor, with educational, administrative and support functions kept separate.
The teaching spaces include 12 classrooms, a foreign languages room, a science laboratory with a preparation room, two computer labs, a technology and design workshop, and a laboratory for aesthetic education and skills development. The school also has a library and reading room, a medical office and sick bay, and a multipurpose hall with capacity for 140 students, complete with a stage and supporting spaces.
Particular attention was given to accessibility, with an elevator and specially adapted sanitary facilities for people with disabilities. The grounds around the building include outdoor sports courts, a covered sports area and courtyards for students to gather.
Minister's comments
Dimas said the government was delivering to the student and teaching community a modern, bioclimatic, safe and fully accessible school, with spaces and infrastructure that meet the most demanding needs of the educational process.
He said the 2nd Gymnasio of Lagkadas was the fourth of the 17 new schools being built through the PPP in Central Macedonia, inaugurated within a matter of days after the 1st Lyceum of Polichni, the General Lyceum of Efkarpia and the 5th Elementary School of Ampelokipoi.
He said it was particularly important that, under the PPP arrangement, the private partner also takes on responsibility for maintaining the school for 25 years. He said this approach not only secured the construction of modern school buildings but also ensured they would be kept at a high standard of operation over the long term.
Wider school upgrade programme
Dimas also pointed to the "Marietta Giannakou" programme, saying it was upgrading hundreds of school facilities across the country for a second consecutive year. He said the programme's second phase covered 240 schools, of which 21 are in the Regional Unit of Thessaloniki.
He said investment in school infrastructure was investment in children and their future. He said the government would continue intensively implementing both the 17-school PPP programme and the "Marietta Giannakou" programme, so that students and teachers would have functional, energy-efficient and high-quality buildings for decades to come.
Lagkadas is a town in the Thessaloniki regional unit of Central Macedonia. A gymnasio in the Greek education system is the lower secondary school stage, typically covering students aged around 12 to 15, before they move on to a lyceum for upper secondary education.
