Speaking at an event co-organised by the Konstantinos Mitsotakis Foundation and Department of Greek Studies “Konstantinos Mitsotakis” at Stanford University, President of major opposition party New Democracy (ND) Kyriakos Mitsotakis vowed to break the state monopoly on tertiary education institutions in Greece and to introduce a constitutional reform allowing the setting up of private universities. Mr. Mitsotakis underlined that the reform would have to permit the creation of non-state run, private;y owned universities, while he also called for the upgrading of the current educational system that would allow it more independence and extroversion. The leader of ND criticised the Education Ministry’s recent decision to scrap the selection of the flag bearers at primary school based on the idea of excellence in academic performance. He pointed out that society had to reward those who refused to compromised with mediocrity, “otherwise we would be led to disaster”.