Shortsighted solutions
The announcement yesterday by the Education Ministry that it intends to increase by 2,000 the number of students entering Greece’s universities has triggered the recurring skepticism about the country’s chronic failures in its education system. The problems dogging Greece’s education system are connected to quality, not quantity. In addition, they are persistent ones. This means that any government campaign to solve them must also be persistent and painstaking. The decision to offer more people the opportunity to attend university is an opportunistic measure which will offer no long-term relief. It is not the first time the government has decided to increase the number of entrants. But similar initiatives in the past have failed to improve the selection process for institutions. Rather, the education system – which is an extremely sensitive sector for the economy and society – appears to be at the mercy of mid-level players, mayors and village chiefs who can see no further than their own re-election. Then there are those who want to wring out paltry sums from students for rent, food and negligible entertainment. These factors eventually influence and often determine the country’s education and development strategy. A welcome change, on the other hand, is that candidates will from now on be entitled to claim a university seat only if their marks are above a minimum threshold. The importance of this reform can easily be understood by considering that last year some 42 percent of the candidates scored below the minimum level. The figure aptly reflects the mess that Greek education is now in. However, it is far from certain that this condition or barrier will perform shock therapy. Rather, there seems good reason to be concerned that fear of political risk will prompt the responsible officials to lower the level of difficulty in the upcoming national examinations so as to make sure that the percentage of failed candidates will not sully the social profile of our political leaders.
