Greece can become a major international education destination

“He was one of the crew on Columbus’s caravel – and he wondered whether he would be back in his home village in time to establish himself as shoemaker before someone else took over after the old one.”

(Markings, Dag Hammarskjold) 

From my perspective, as it continues to recover from the nearly decade-long financial crisis as well as the Covid pandemic, Greece has a strategic opportunity to follow a path that can lead to a dynamic and prosperous future. Without a doubt, pursuing the challenging reforms to the long-established Greek education system that have been the subject of so much discussion and debate over the years, including in the recent national elections, will play a major role in this hoped-for future.

Speaking from my experience in the US education system, specifically the US higher education system, I continue to believe that Greece’s best future in education will emerge only if the system is reformed significantly to provide more student choice and greater institutional autonomy. If students are allowed to choose, based not only on their preferences but also their academic performance, institutions will be more accountable. And, if institutions have more autonomy, they will be better able to respond to student and other stakeholder (e.g., business community) interests.

Two examples from recent experience at The American College of Greece (ACG) illustrate the point. Over the past ten years, ACG has grown its “Parallel Studies Program” (in which students from every Greek public university are able to enroll in a course of their choosing) to over 1,000 students per year. In the same timeframe, ACG’s “Study Abroad Program” has grown to over 1,000 students per year from nearly 250 international universities (also with students able to enroll in a course of their choosing). In the past five years, 41% of the “National Universities” in the US have sent study abroad students to ACG.

The recent growth and success of these two ACG programs point more broadly to the possibilities for Greece. By following through on educational reforms that allow for considerably greater institutional diversity and autonomy and provide Greek students a wider set of choices, Greece can become a major international education destination and reduce substantially the number of Greek students choosing to study elsewhere.

Finally, the disruptive impact of technology in education makes the need for reform even more urgent. Students now can access learning anytime from anywhere; the trend toward more convenient, cost-effective, personalized education is dramatic. In such an environment, highly centralized, bureaucratic systems of institutional control will be lethal. Therefore, the extent and efficacy of Greece’s educational reforms in the near-term, in the direction of greater student choice and institutional autonomy will be a major determinant of Greece’s ability to enter a new era of sustainable, economic vitality and social mobility.