Education Minister Constantinos Arvanitopoulos said this week that he was open to amending a proposed scheme for streamlining Greece's higher education system which has been the focus of hard criticism by academics and some politicians. The focus of the overhaul, which is named "Athena", and which has so far created upheaval for students and academics all over the country, is to allow a larger number of students to enter popular faculties while abolishing under performing departments to cut back on state spending.
In such a framework, the Minister called on directors of higher learning academies and technical colleges to submit their proposals while at the same time he encouraged them to seek private sponsorship and create English-language departments in order to attract paying students from abroad and raise further funding.
Arvanitopoulos noted that the proposed transfers of university and technical college faculties to other university campuses would be suspended.
