The shocking condition of Greece’s universities – a corrupt, violent, state tax collection system – has finally mobilized legislators. They’ve passed a strong reform bill, insisting on admissions standards, administrative autonomy and accountability, limits on the number of years people can be students, rational curricula, etc., etc.
As the opinion writer in my headline notes, the most staggering fact about Greek universities (scroll down for earlier posts about them) is their purposelessness. Of course in response to the legislation their complacent stakeholders have moved to shut them down, trash them, etc. But how to tell the difference between this and the status quo?
September 14th, 2011 at 12:29AM
Margaret, several times I’ve read you waxing enthousiastic on university reform programs in countries where you don’t work, probably without knowing the ins and outs of the actual reform packages.
I think you should be a tad prudent. As a humanities professor, you probably know that one very tempting “reform” action is to get rid of anything not deemed economically useful. In short, in the view of some proponents of “reforms”, your job would be one of the first to go. 🙂
September 14th, 2011 at 8:57AM
Thanks for the European perspective on Greece, David.