A big bang in the secondary, tertiary and post-secondary education sectors is being pursued by the government. In schools, digital tutoring has started – after years of delays – and already student participation is high, while several universities are in talks to hold joint postgraduate courses with some of the world’s biggest universities, such as Yale, Columbia, and Harvard.

The first stakeholders interested in establishing non-state universities in collaboration with foreign institutions are awaiting the decisions of the State Council and the legal framework, while there is growing interest from major foreign institutions in establishing branches in the country. The Ministry of Education is currently holding its cards close to its chest in this regard since in some cases the discussions are “sensitive”.

At the same time, acquisitions of IEK are taking place by large foreign funds that have not specified their intentions, but their interest is mainly focused on Higher Education. It should be noted that the IEK and college sector is an essentially unregulated market, but European Court of Justice rulings have given their graduates (with few exceptions) professional rights.

Revolution in postgraduate education

Introducing the law on non-state universities through cooperation with foreign institutions, Kyriakos Pierrakakis announced that public universities in Greece would be given the opportunity to organize joint postgraduate programs with major foreign universities.

A total of 62 million euros – of which 50 million from the Recovery Fund – will be made available for Greek universities to collaborate with foreign ones to create joint postgraduate programs which “should be innovative, not already provided by public higher education institutions and should be provided on terms affordable for the society as a whole with or without payment of tuition fees”, according to the ministerial decision.

Already mobility in this field is very high, as a total of 24 foreign universities are starting cooperation with Greek universities for postgraduate studies. The ECPA is in discussions with Yale for the organization of joint master’s degrees in Environmental Sciences and Public Health, as well as with Harvard for master’s degrees in Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine.

The EMP has also joined the dance, in talks with the MIT Sloan School of Management for graduate degrees in Management and Economics Engineering, as well as with the French Ecole Polytechnique for Statistics and Machine Learning. In parallel, discussions are also underway with the University of Southampton for postgraduate degrees in green shipping.

The Panteion is negotiating with the Technical University of Berlin for master’s degrees in Culture, Technology and Urban Design and with Columbia for master’s degrees in Social Sciences. The University of Piraeus is planning joint master’s degrees with the renowned Purdue University, based in Indiana, USA, in Applied Artificial Intelligence. Currently the active graduate students in Greece are 86,409, but it is clear that these moves will provide new opportunities for many high-scoring graduates who cannot afford a graduate degree at a major foreign university.

It should be noted that our country “discovered” postgraduate degrees due to the great crisis, as more and more students have since been looking for “weapons” to find a better paying job. The memorandum years were a milestone in the growth of postgraduate studies. In 2010, 31 071 students were studying in Greek universities’ postgraduate programmes. A few years later, in 2016, the number had increased to 52,948 and in 2019 it had reached 78,518. In 2021 the number increased to 84,248, while in 2022 the number of postgraduate students increased by almost 11,000, reaching 94,931!

The increase in the number of graduate programs is also large. According to available data from the Ministry of Education, our country’s universities now offer a total of 923 programs, while in 2021 there were 828 graduate programs and in 2016 there were about 600.

In any case, there is also the parameter of financial benefit for public HEIs, as the tuition fees of postgraduate courses bring funds into the coffers of the institutions, while the monthly salaries of the lecturers increase. Today, the tuition fees for postgraduate degrees range from 1,500 euros to 10,000 euros per year!

The fees for postgraduate degrees are also being increased to increase the number of students’ salaries.

According to the latest data from the National Authority for Higher Education, postgraduate students in 2022 accounted for 11.25% of all students at Greek universities, compared to 10.5% the previous year. It is noted that despite the “explosion” in postgraduate students, our country remains far below the European average – the percentage of postgraduate students in the EU is on average 29.18%, which is almost three times higher than the Greek data. Greece has the lowest percentage of postgraduate students among the EU countries – Cyprus is first with 46.44%, followed by Italy with 37.95%.

Ready for Medicine

At the same time, the decision of the Council of State on the ministerial decision following the Pierrakakis law on the establishment of non-state universities is awaited by CVC Capital and the University of Nicosia which will establish a medical school in Athens.

The UNIC University School of Medicine is planned to operate to the same rigorous standards as in Nicosia and in collaboration with CVC-controlled clinics, where students will be able to attend courses requiring hospital attendance and apprenticeships. The property of the former Olympic Catering, with a built-up area of 8,000 square meters, has already been purchased for the campus, as well as properties in other areas of Athens, close to hospitals controlled by CVC.

Mobility in the IEK
Last week, BC Partners of Nikos Stathopoulos took over the Delta IEK Group/Delta 360. The fund is showing more interest in higher education, as evidenced in practice by its acquisition (for a price reportedly exceeding €210 million for 85%) of Metropolitan College and AKMI school.

The British education group saw as an enticement to this school the fact that 50% of its students are foreign students (mostly Chinese) and the rest are Greeks from abroad, while the business side is booming with health.

In the fiscal year ended June 30, 2023, the International School of Athens had a turnover of 6.88 million euros and a net profit of 1.59 million euros, up from 5.99 million euros and a profit of 1.4 million euros respectively in the previous fiscal year.

Other large funds such as BC Partners have made moves to invest in private higher education in the country with the acquisition of Akmi Group – Metropolitan College. The acquisition of Akmi Group by BC Partners was made at a price of more than 210 million euros for the acquisition of more than 85% stake in the company.

What BC Partners, for example, recognized and invested in Akmi Group is that the education sector went through the crisis in Greece and was one of the few that were not dramatically affected. Colleges are recognized as private organizations that can provide accredited degrees in partnership with foreign universities. The degrees, however, provide professional recognition but not academic recognition, which means, for example, that their graduates cannot subsequently teach at a state university institution or pursue postgraduate studies at a state university.

The Digital Tutoring Center
This school year’s big innovation premiered as a pilot on Sept. 16 and involves thousands of students across the country. Every candidate for admission to higher education, through the Panhellenic Examinations, will be able to watch live evening performances for the entire syllabus in the subjects being examined, including – for the first time – special subjects such as linear and architectural design, German and French.

In its first days of operation, the Digital Tutoring Centre has recorded the participation of about 4,000 students of the third grade per course.

The students will have the opportunity for interactive participation and individualized support from the 98 teachers assigned to provide remedial teaching in the 45 subjects tested nationwide in June in general and vocational high schools. In addition, the teaching will also cover 10 special education subjects for the Single Special Vocational Secondary Schools.

It is also noted that all courses are also available in sign language, and with the use of AI tools, the deliveries are available after their transmission subtitled.

Furthermore, the digital tutorial enables all students to follow the entire syllabus in electronic format. Already, the material from the Modern Greek Language and Mathematics courses is available for all grades of secondary school, while by the end of 2025, 2,500 easy-to-understand and digitised videos will be posted for a total of 49 courses from the 5th primary school to the 3rd secondary school.

Gaps and shortcomings

And for this school year, the criticism focuses on teacher shortages recorded in various regions of the country. Officials at the Ministry of Education respond that 28,000 substitutes were hired for last school year, while 28,500 substitutes have already been hired for this year.

At the same time, they add, 5,500 permanent teacher appointments were made in addition to the 4,500 permanent appointments made to replace those who retired under the one-appointment-for-one-retirement rule.

The same officials add that there are annual vacancies arising from medical leaves and illnesses that will be immediately filled by extra appropriations.