Universities sinking deep in mediocrity
There is one very crucial question that we will have to address very seriously one day soon: What has happened to Greece’s acclaimed and competitive universities? Where have they gone? Celebrations for the 170th anniversary of the founding of the National Technical University of Athens provide a perfect opportunity to focus on this question. The NTUA once provided the country with a succession of well-educated young people who were eager to put their knowledge and skills into the effort of rebuilding Greece. In the words of its own dean, the National Technical University of Athens is suffering from the same chronic ailments that have condemned the rest of the country’s universities to a state of mediocrity. There are plenty of young people with good, sharp minds in Greece, but what we need is to regain those institutions of the past, those that displayed the qualities and standards for which the NTUA was once renowned.
