AUTh: Concerns about the establishment of non-state universities – 2024-03-05 15:04:09

The AUTH Senate expresses concern about the developments in the field of higher education with its unanimous decision regarding the bill for non-state universities.

Regarding the non-profit branches of foreign universities, the Senate emphasizes that their establishment “constitutes a central challenge and a major change in the field of higher education, which is expected to have serious effects on the operation of public universities, especially if there is no substantial and on a permanent basis supporting and strengthening them”.

It underlines that “such a change in the landscape of higher education requires substantial consultation with the academic community over a longer period of time” and adds that “the short provisions of the bill governing the operation of the Higher Education Institutions do not provide sufficient guarantees for reliable and quality academic operation them, particularly in terms of their assessment and certification, ensuring non-profit character, limited state supervision, management model, qualifications and staff development, program and degree quality control, duration of studies, admission criteria, etc.”

“Substantial strengthening of the public university is essential”

According to the Senate, the primary choice of the state and a prerequisite for any attempted reform in the field of higher education must be the substantial strengthening and upgrading of the public university by further strengthening the self-governing body and its autonomy, increasing state funding, staffing them with human resources, the maintenance and development of infrastructure and the simplification of bureaucratic procedures.

It states that the bill “includes several provisions for the public university that generally move in the right direction, as it corrects several of the identified dysfunctions of the existing legal framework, most of which are exhausted, to a large extent, in technical details.”

“These improvements,” the Senate continues, “are not of the size and importance required to effectively upgrade the public university, nor do they reduce bureaucracy, as they continue the practice of over-regulating all aspects of academic operations.”

In addition, he notes that “the institutional framework of non-state universities is regulated in the bill in only 26 short articles, with very important issues (administration, qualifications and staff development, programs and degrees) being left open and referred to the operating statutes and internal the regulations in contrast to the hundreds of articles of Law 4957/2022 that govern the operation of a public AEI”.

The AUTH Senate “considers that the specific legislative initiative does not sufficiently address all the above issues. Higher education is the responsibility of the state” and “for this reason, it calls for the institutional strengthening and financial support of the pre-eminent institution of higher education, research and innovation production in our country, which is and will remain the public university”.

Source: RES-MPE