College owners happy with stricter conditions
Owners of private colleges affiliated with foreign universities in Greece are happy with a new bill that imposes stricter prerequisites on their operation, Kathimerini has learned. According to sources, the conditions outlined in the bill tabled in Parliament last week by Education Minister Anna Diamantopoulou are far stricter than an original law passed by her conservative predecessor. For instance, the minimum surface area a college’s premises must cover in order to qualify for a license will increase from 300 square meters to as much as 1,000 square meters, sources said. In this case, at least half of the 39 operating licenses granted to college owners by the previous conservative government will be revoked. This does not appear to faze Constantinos Karkanias, the chairman of the Hellenic Colleges’ Association, who told Kathimerini, «The new bill creates a better legal framework than the previous law.»
