OPINION

Higher expectations

The Academy of Athens, a group of elite scholars, does not exactly deserve credit for its timely and adequate response to contemporary issues. The same can be said about Greece’s intellectuals. It took more than eight months of strikes, demonstrations and sit-ins as well as the destruction of public property – in short, major social turmoil – for the academy to release a first so-called declaration on recent developments regarding the country’s university education system and the government-proposed changes. As one would expect, the document largely repeats the findings of the study conducted by the Veremis committee, a government-appointed panel led by professor Thanos Veremis of Athens University, which has come up with a series of tertiary education reforms. The report published by the above committee is the most thought-out proposal to come to light so far. The points on which the two bodies converge are, in fact, common-sense issues. However, apart from the obvious, practical reforms, the Greek education system (and not just tertiary education) is in need of a breakthrough, an ambitious long-term strategy – and not just makeshift solutions that will merely keep the whole creaky system running as usual.

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