Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis addressed students sitting Greece’s nationwide university entrance exams on Friday through a video message posted on social media, marking the start of the Panhellenic Examinations, Greece’s nationwide university entrance exams. Former prime minister and president of the newly founded Greek Left Alliance (EL.A.S.) Alexis Tsipras also shared a message of encouragement with candidates.

Mitsotakis acknowledged that students were beginning the demanding process of the Panhellenic Exams and remarked that the last thing most candidates wanted to hear was “the usual clichés.” Instead, he said he wanted to offer something more meaningful.

The prime minister stressed that students and their families who experience anxiety, pressure, or simply feel the need to speak with someone can now turn to the free 24-hour support hotline 1550. He noted that psychologists and trained specialists staff the line and are available to provide practical emotional support throughout what he described as an especially challenging period.

Concluding his message, Mitsotakis urged candidates to trust themselves and the effort they had invested over the past months, encouraging them to enter the examination room with a clear mind and composure. He wished all students success in the exams ahead.

Tsipras, in his own message to candidates, said that “their dreams are far too big to fit on the pages of the Panhellenic exams.” He admitted that his words might sound cliché, but argued that such sentiments ring true during a period as stressful as the nationwide tests.

Reflecting on the shared experience of generations of students, he noted that even adults who have long since completed the process still remember how emotionally demanding those days were, regardless of their performance.

He added that, whatever the outcome, the exams represented only one of many challenges students would encounter in life, which, he said, still lay entirely ahead of them.

Tsipras accompanied his post with an image from the coming-of-age film The Breakfast Club.