GREECE

Overhaul in store for Greek higher education

Seeking to upgrade Greece’s system of higher education, widen its scope, entrench hitherto elusive meritocracy and to activate a brain grain, the Education Ministry is on course to introduce legislation with radical changes affecting the curriculum, selection of academics and administration, writes Apostolos Lakasas for Ekathimerini.com.

Kathimerini understands that the draft bill foresees departments of applied sciences essentially taking the place of the technical colleges (TEI) that were abolished under the previous SYRIZA government, to cover the needs of technical education. Students will be admitted through national entry exams while graduates of vocational training institutes (IEKs) will also be given the opportunity to attend them.

Other novelties provide for changes to the structure of study programmes as well as the way professors are selected. The main goal of the latter changes is to elicit a brain gain, by luring young Greek academics, as well as non-Greeks, from abroad.
Full report on the Ekathimerini site