Eureka! Institutional Repository

Nowadays, the rapid development of technology forces people to keep up with it, as a result, the only option for a social field such as preschool education would be to keep pace with that development. This is why more and more innovative programs are being designed and implemented in the school classroom that aim to integrate education into the modern era of entrepreneurship and technology, as well as to prepare students for sustainable development. These programs are usually implemented during school hours and the new kindergarten curricula provide time for this implementation. This paper aims to investigate whether innovative programs are being implemented in Greek kindergartens, which ones, what factors hinder their use, how well - educated Greek teachers are, and finally how kindergarten’s Headmistress affects on their promotion and implementation. The method used to investigate the above questions is the quantitative survey, in which 251 kindergarten teachers were interviewed. A structured questionnaire with Likert-type items was used, which was divided into six sub-sections. According to the results the majority of Greek kindergarten teachers implement statutory innovative programs. Although they don’t use robotics or STEM education as education tools in their classroom. Training on organization and management of educational units, European programs and other innovative learning tools appeared to be inadequate. Majorities cite the lack of training and the bureaucracy as factors that hamper teachers' participation in European innovative programs, while regarding interdisciplinary innovative programs, the difficulty in their implementation seems to be the inadequate logistical infrastructure. Finally, the role of the Headmistress is thought to be important in promoting change and innovation.