Optimising the effectiveness of European and national funds in the Hellenic education sector

Abstract

Greece's aim to improve its overall Education system and to make it more competitive necessitated the development of the Operational Programme (OP) 'Education'. This programme forms a part of the Third Community Support Framework's 24 OP within the period of 2000-2006. The overall financial budget is co-financed by the European Social Fund, the European Regional Development Fund and the National Resources. Article 38 of the Regulation 1260/99 EU states that "the member state bears the responsibility in the first degree for the financial control of projects co-funded by structural funds through a series of measures undertaken". As such, 'the prevention, detection and correction of financial fallouts from the discovery of discrepancies' is of predominant importance. Ongoing research revealed that the bottlenecks do occur in the effective cooperation and coordination of the involved bodies. This article will emphasise the existing monitoring schemes and will propose means to improve the effectiveness of the community and the national resources.EU funds; European Union; data-based monitoring system; Greece; national funds; education funding; financial control; cooperation; coordination.