Education minister to ditch excellence as main principle
Education Minister Aristides Baltas on Tuesday confirmed the government’s intention to scrap university councils responsible for overseeing the running of tertiary institutions and told Kathimerini that the Greek education system should not be governed by the principle of “excellence.”
The university councils, which include foreign academics and Greek academics from abroad, were formed as part of the tertiary education reform passed in 2011 with the aim of providing more independent oversight in the running of the institutions.
Baltas also said that the government would scrap a law requiring senior high school students to have minimum scores of 50 percent (10 out of 20) in math and Greek in order to progress to the next grade. According to the new regulations due to be passed, pupils will be able to advance if they have an average score of 9.5 out of 20 (47.5 percent).
“Excellence is a warped ambition,” Baltas told Kathimerini.
