Ομιλία στο Φόρουμ για την Τριτοβάθμια Διασυνοριακή Εκπαίδευση που διοργάνωσε το Βρετανικό Συμβούλιο στην Ελλάδα

Honorable guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you for the invitation and for giving me the opportunity to participate in this conversation with distinguished participants, about challenges, opportunities and prospects regarding UK higher education in Greece.

Before what will surely be a very fruitful discussion on the preliminary findings of the Research conducted on UK Transnational education in Greece, I would simply like to share with you in broad terms our vision for education in Greece, the vision of New Democracy for education in Greece.

New Democracy, the major opposition party in Parliament, and its leader himself, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, places a particular emphasis on education. Our vision for the years to come is our country to become an educational hub in the heart of Southeastern Europe, offering high quality education to all citizens of Greece, but also attracting students from all over the world.

We are currently working hard on finalizing the details of our education policy on all levels, primary, secondary and tertiary; a policy based on the principles of excellence, meritocracy and autonomy – autonomy of both schools and universities.

Here are some of our basic priorities regarding Higher Education in particular:

• We will work hard on the reinforcement of autonomy and self-administration of Universities, including the rights of institutions in decision making on organizational, financial and scientific matters.
• It is among our top priorities to enhance the higher technical and vocational education and training, and to strengthen the link between, on the one hand, education, training and research and, on the other hand, the labor market. Youth unemployment rates in Greece are simply stricking; we have to take action immediately.
• As far as the financials of the Universities are concerned, and given also the problematic economic environment we are operating in, we are in favor of also employing alternative sources of funding for institutions, e.g. public – private partneships, donations etc.
• Another major priority: the enhancement of the quality of the academic environment. We are living in 2018 in a modern democratic European country; and yet because of the existence of an asylum law introduced by the current Government, police forces are not allowed to enter University campuses when informed of crimes and offenses taking place there. There must first be a decision of a multi-member board of the University on each instance, which may take days to issue its decision. And in the meantime of course, the offenders are long gone. So our universities are often transformed into getto towns, into a rescue harbour for all sorts of criminals performing illegal acts. This is simply unacceptable, and it will be changed by a ND Government.
• A the core of our education policy program, at the very core of our ideology, is the promotion of the internationalization of Greek higher education and the establishment of private universities under strict conditions and prerequisites in terms of quality assurance and assessment.

Let me elaborate a little bit on this issue of the internationalization of Greek Higher Education and its attractiveness for cross-border mobility of students and academia. What does this boil down to:

• Introducing foreign language programs, at both the undergaduate and postgraduate levels, attracting foreign students
• Introducing summer courses (combining education and training with tourism) again in order to attract foreign students
• Implementing more distance learning programs, investing in new technologies
• Developing academic collaborations and networking with other Institutions (domestic, European and overseas)
• Establishing International Programs in collaboration with Institutions abroad
• Offering quality European curricula, as part of mobility programmes already in place or in the pipeline, such as Erasmus Mundus

Ladies and Gentlemen,

For us internationalization of education in general is a top priority, all the more so in higher education. Nowadays, that both Greece and Europe suffer from unemployment and lack of specialized personnel; nowadays, that both Greece and Europe are going through a multifaceted crisis; nowadays, that more than a third of employers globally report facing difficulties in finding talents and nearly half expect talent shortages to have a negative impact on their business results; nowadays, it is our duty, as educators, as parents, as policy makers, to provide our children, with the ability to adapt to the ever-changing and demanding living and working conditions. It is our duty to provide them with skills, such as critical thinking, creativity, resilience, empathy, adaptability, and assist them in becoming independent thinkers and active citizens. To this end, we will work hard on rendering cross-border mobility more attractive.

To conclude, I would like to emphasize the fact that investment in education and human capital goes beyond an economic necessity: it is the basis for individuals to live up to their full potential. And for us, investment in education is an absolute national priority.