 state.
· Among all EU member countries, Greece has the largest number of tudents leaving Greece to enroll in universities in Europe and elsewhere. Every year, 60,000 Greek students attend European universities.
· The unemployment rates of graduates, and periods of unemployment after graduation, are unacceptably high. Their employability is compromised by the economy and their reduced ability to compete with graduates from other European universities.
· Greek university campuses are not secure. While the Constitution allows University leaders to protect campuses against elements that seek political instability, Rectors have been reluctant to exercise their rights and responsibilities, and to make decisions needed in order to keep faculty, staff and students safe. As a result, University leaders and faculty have not been able to be good stewards of the facilities they have been entrusted with by the public.
· The politicization of the campuses – and specifically the politicization of students – represents a beyond-reasonable involvement in the political process. This is contributing to an accelerated degradation of higher education.
· There are many pockets of good research, yet overall the research effort lags behind in comparisons with the other EU members.
Over the last 30 years, the Greek university system has undergone organizational and cultural changes that are prohibiting its universities from achieving their goals and attending to their mission. Greece is trying to reverse this path and within this process it must also reform the financial and educational institutions that support the society and impact economic growth. Education in general, and Higher Education more specifically, desperately require reform, if Greece is to sustain the financial and economic initiatives presently under way and to succeed in reversing the conditions of a downward economy.In view of the above, the committee is suggesting the following:
A. Clarify the Mission of the Various Greek Institutions of Higher Education: The University System
· Greek universities have unclear missions, inadequate goals and uncertain futures. There is an unclear division between undergraduate four-year technical institutions and research universities. It is important for the Ministry of Education to initiate a process that will help revisit and clarify the mission of all Greek universities. The ministry should re-establish strategic goals and identify a system of institutions of higher education with memoranda of understanding between these institutions that promote collaboration and coordination rather than encourage competition and friction.
· The Greek Higher Education System is missing a very important component of post secondary education. These are the two-year, Regional Colleges. These vocational institutions play a key role in educating the society and in contributing to economic development. The usefulness and importance of these colleges is in their ability to:
§ Provide a thorough foundation to students who may wish to learn a vocation and to work in professions that do not require higher education.
§ Provide education to students who at present, through the national assessment tests, have no access to a Greek public institution of post-secondary education.
§ Allow students to receive a solid education without having to leave their homes and move to other communities, kilometers away from their own towns and families.
§ Allow the top students to have the means to matriculate to four year colleges under well described articulations and processes.
§ Become an engine of economic development for the surrounding towns and communities
B. Strengthen the Autonomy of the Greek Universities: The University Board
· Universities should forge links with the international academic community to ensure a robust exchange of ideas, to set and maintain standards and to connect with Greek scholars abroad.
· Universities should be autonomous in terms of managing their resources, independently appointing the leadership and administration and making academic decisions t