ATHENS – Grumbling about school is common among students but what has raised some concern in Greece is that one in three feel “pressured” by being in that environment and under the weight of too many demands.

That was the finding of a study carried out in 2018 by the University Mental Health Research Institute but just now published that showed among 3,863 students from sixth to ninth grade that only 29.2 percent felt they had the support of their peers, said Kathimerini.

Only 20 percent felt the same about their teachers, while 31.8 percent said they had difficulty handling the rigors of being in school.

“These findings dictate the need for policies and interventions that will improve communication and relationships between members of the educational community,”

Athens University professor Anna Kokkevi, who supervised the study, told the paper.

Being happy at school also declines with age – from 78.4 percent among 11-year-olds to 50 percent among 15-year-olds – the study said. From 1998 to 2018, meanwhile, the percentage of pupils who do not like school at all nearly doubled from 5.9 to 11.2 percent.