Plan to streamline universities would reduce entrants by a third

A plan to streamline the country’s higher education system, leaving fewer departments offering courses on the most popular subjects and abolishing those with scant demand, was unveiled on Thursday by Education Minister Constantinos Arvanitopoulos.
The scheme, dubbed Athina, foresees four universities shutting down – the University of Central Greece, the University of Western Greece, the International Hellenic University and the University of Western Macedonia – and the closure of dozens of departments at universities and technical colleges which have little demand.
According to Arvanitopoulos, the overhaul will allow a larger number of students to enter popular faculties such as those focusing on economics and business but the abolition of a large number of underperforming departments will still bring down the number of entrants to higher education institutions by about a third. Read more...