Minister of Education on non-state Universities: Greece imposes the strictest criteria

Clarifications regarding the connection between enrollment in the non-state universities to be established in Greece with the Minimum Entry Score and the National Examinations were announced Thursday morning by the Minister of Education, Kyriakos Pierrakakis, stating that the criteria for the new academic entities will be the strictest in all of Europe.

The logic of the Ministry of Education is “if someone cannot enter public universities through the National Entrance Examinations, they should also not be able to do so in non-state ones. This is the criterion”.

“This logic has been defined because there are rules we must adhere to regarding the constitutional framework of how higher education operates in our country”, added Mr. Pierrakakis.

Explaining further what will apply for admissions and the Minimum Admission Base, the Minister of Education mentioned a “special minimum admission base that will be derived as follows: we have 4 scientific fields. In each one, there is an average performance, and from that, we take the smallest one and multiply it by 0.8, resulting in a single score. Roughly, this corresponds to a threshold below which you cannot enter non-state universities. Therefore, someone who does not have access to the public university below a certain limit will not be able to attend non-state universities”.

“We have an acquired and an existing national system. We judged that this connection must be made, but this is not the only criterion for non-state universities”, continued the Minister of Education, explaining that “what the law contains are the minimums. Each school will set its own criteria, which must be the same as those of the parent institution. However, these criteria must also be judged by the Greek independent authority, so it is a complete system”.

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