Forming tighter bonds with UK universities
British universities are teaming up with Greek counterparts to create joint programs aimed at attracting local and third-country students after Brexit drove up tuition fees in Britain, a conference of the UK-Greece Strategic Partnership in Education heard on Monday.
The idea of the scheme, which is being carried out between individual universities, is to design joint degrees that will be certified by both institutions. The majority will be postgraduate programs, aimed not just at Greek and other students from the Balkans and the Mediterranean, but also from further afield like China, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
“In practical terms, the students – Greek and international – will receive a degree that is issued jointly by the Greek and British universities involved in the partnership. This constitutes a significant competitive advantage for Greek universities, as they will be able to issue degrees with a ‘British stamp,’ but with much lower fees and for a much lower cost of living,” says Christos Michalakelis, as assistant professor at Athens’ Harokopeio University and president of the Study in Greece project for promoting the country as an international education destination, who was at the conference.
The conference was attended by British Ambassador Matthew Lodge and the Education Ministry’s general secretary for higher education, Apostolos Dimitropoulos, who also announced that Greek universities have applied for funding via the European Union-backed Partnership Agreement to bankroll more than 200 English-language undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral courses.
He said that some of these programs will be starting in October, though most will be slated for the 2023-24 academic year.
