Plan afoot to align higher education with job market

As part of the plan to upgrade higher education, the Education Ministry is drafting changes that include aligning courses with the needs of the labor market, increasing positions in IT departments, supporting regional universities, merging departments and creating new ones.

Speaking to Kathimerini, a high-ranking Education Ministry official said that the recent decision regarding the merger of university departments was the first step in the process. The same official said the courses that will be taught in the new departments will seek to fill voids in the labor market, noting, as an example, the some 50,000 jobs that will be created by the digital transformation drive of Greece’s public services with resources from the European Union recovery fund.

In addition to the new departments that will help meet this demand, it is not being ruled that so-called conversion courses (through postgraduate or lifelong learning programs) will be also introduced for graduates in related fields.