Roll call voting ended around 10:30pm having started around 8:00pm.
The new framework law entitled: “New Horizons in Higher Education Institutions: Strengthening the quality, functionality and connection of HEIs with society and other provisions”, was passed in the Parliament.
Roll call voting ended around 10:30pm having started around 8:00pm.
The framework law for universities was approved by the plenary session of the Parliament with the positive votes of the majority.
The basic ones regulations of the new framework law with Title: “New Horizons in Higher Education Institutions: Strengthening the quality, functionality and connection of HEIs with society and other provisions” in three bundles, based on the groups of beneficiaries, presented yesterday, during her speech before the Plenary of the Parliament, the Minister of Education and Religious Affairs, Niki Kerameos.
The Minister highlighted the benefits as follows:
Regarding male and female students:
More academic options for modern, competitive, interdisciplinary studies, with:
– Possibility of choosing courses from other Departments.
– Double/joint degrees.
– Minor degree study programs.
– Applied science and technology programs.
– “Greek Erasmus”.
Better and easier daily life at the University with:
– Psychological and Counseling Support Centers.
– Care for students with disabilities.
– Assurance for objective grading.
– Scholarships based on financial, but also social and academic criteria.
They are more meaningfully represented, based on their real needs with:
– Establishment of a Student Council.
– Student elections to the administrative bodies of the University with a single ballot.
A better and more protected connection to the labor market, with:
– Internship upgrade.
– Industrial PhDs in the context of HEI cooperation with industry bodies.
– Support for start-ups from students and graduates.
Regarding academics, researchers, all those who work at the Greek university:
- A more transparent and meritocratic environment with a new framework for the election and development of faculty members, with safeguards.
- Greater freedom and flexibility, without bureaucratic over-regulation, for an easier and better educational, academic and research everyday life.
- They are supported with substantial incentives and facilities to enter into more partnerships in Greece and abroad with:
– Double/Joint study programs with Departments of the same, but also of other Universities inside and outside Greece
– Foreign language study programs.
– Summer study programs for Greek and foreign students
– University branches inside and outside Greece.
– Possibility of establishing inter-institutional research institutes with research bodies inside and outside Greece.
Regarding society as a whole and citizens in general:
 The results of the innovative research that will take place in the Universities (eg new educational method, new treatment, new mechanism) will be disseminated to society, for its benefit, they will not be recycled internally at the University. With:
– Incentives for innovative research without bureaucratic obstacles.
– Encouraging entrepreneurship for the exploitation of research results and the development of innovative products and services.
– Citizens will have access to services from the Universities’ laboratories – e.g. psychological counseling services, legal support, diagnostic tests.
 All citizens and workers will have more opportunities to learn, as HEIs gain a central role in lifelong learning with quality educational programs for all, since the acquisition of new knowledge should never stop.
 We support Greek students, scientists and professionals from abroad to return to Greece, dealing with the phenomenon of brain drain:
 To teach at the Greek University:
– E.g. Rationalization of the institution of parallel employment in Universities abroad.
 To do research at the Greek University:
– E.g. Tenure researchers and establishment of new full-time positions for scientists receiving European Research Council (ERC) funding.
 To work in Greece:
– Faster and simpler recognition of an academic qualification that allows access to the labor market.
 To study at the Greek University:
– Abolition of the obligation to recognize foreign degrees by DOATAP for participation in national Universities’ PMS if the titles are included in the DOATAP Register.
– Providing new, competitive options, e.g. double/joint degrees and with foreign universities, industrial doctorates.
In closing, the minister noted that: “the University of Greece will have nothing to envy from the best Institutions in the world, it will be able to utilize a multitude of new institutional tools to make them even more competitive. The new framework law upgrades higher education as a whole, gives our young men and women more and better resources for the present and the future”.
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