Remarks on Higher Education Reform under the New Greek Government by
Anatolia College President Richard Jackson at the American Hellenic Institute
in Washington, DC November 6, 2007
It seems presumptuous of me as an American heading a private, non-profit school in
Greece to be speaking about reform under the new Government, so let me preface it by
saying I’ll be speaking from the perspective of heading Anatolia College and its university
division, the American College of Thessaloniki (ACT). I am a former diplomat, so I
come at the subject also from that optic as well.
First, a thumbnail sketch about what Anatolia is for some of you who may not be
familiar with our institution. We are one of the oldest American colleges in Europe and
evolved directly from the Haystack Prayer Meeting at Williams College in 1806. I was
invited back to Williams for their bicentennial celebration last year and was a speaker at
that event. This early meeting led to the formation of the American Board for Foreign
Missions in Boston in 1810, and we were one of the original Congregationalist missions,
first set up as the Bebek Seminary in Constantinople. We divided into two halves, one of
which secularized and stayed in Constantinople as Robert College. Our half moved in
1862 to Merzefon in the Pontos region, where we also secularized and took the name
Anatolia College in 1886. We functioned there as the largest American campus in the
Mediterranean region at that time with 45 buildings and a teaching hospital. The Turks
closed us down in 1921, and the then-President of Anatolia, George White, met with
Eleftherios Venizelos in 1923. Venizelos said to him that Greece wanted American
education and we must come to Thessaloniki because Thessaloniki is the most
international city of Greece, so we took his advice and have been in Thessaloniki since
1924, establishing ourselves there first as a secondary school and then gradually filling
out to the full mandate we had in Turkey of elementary through university education.
We are today an elementary school for 400 children, a six-year high school for 1,300,
generally regarded us arguably the best school in Greece in terms of placement into the
top Greek public universities as well as prestigious institutions in the United States and
Britain. We are at the higher level a four-year undergraduate program and an intensive
one-year MBA. We are expanding the latter program in partnership with a business
school in Athens, the Athens Laboratory of Business Administration (ALBA), and will
start an executive MBA program this coming January and a Masters in Finance next
September. That is, in a nutshell, who we are.
I would like to say that in the nine years that I’ve been privileged to be in Thessaloniki,
education has seemed to me to be in total ferment at all levels in Greece, operating as we
do elementary, high school and university divisions. We thus follow reform at each level.
At the elementary level, there is an acute shortage of teachers and last year there was a
paralyzing strike for a 45% pay increase. At the secondary level, it is a very lockstep
system where every child is on the same page of the same book at the same time each
day. In other words, a very centralized statist system with a premium on preparation for
countrywide Pan-Hellenic exams, which are the threshold for university entrance, and it
is very competitive in Greece to get into the top faculties. Everybody who graduates
from high school and achieves a minimum 50% success on Pan-Hellenic examinations
gets an offer to an institution of higher education, but to get into the high-quality ones is
extremely competitive.
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Having served as a diplomat for close to 30 years and traveled around the world, I think
that Greek parents are the most ambitious, of any parents anywhere that I’ve observed,
for education as a vehicle for advancement for their children. Paradoxically, this works
against the established educational institutions. There is a network in Greece of what we
would call cram schools or “frontistiria” to prepare students for the university entry
exams, and as I have observed from high school students at our school, they will work an
intensive 8:00 a.m. -3:00 p.m. day, go home for a sandwich, and rush off to cram school
often until 10:00 o’clock at night, effectively robbing them of, I would say, their
childhood or leisure time, and sports. So, with that background, we can now turn to
reform of higher education which is my topic today.
I find it a paradox, if you argue that higher education originated in Greece 2,500 years
ago, that there is today a flowering next door, of all places in Turkey, of high quality,
non-profit higher education. Schools like Bilgi, Sabanci, Koc, Bilkent and others are
high-standard, private institutions which have developed because the government there
recognizes private, non-profit education and, realizing that it is reinforcing for the public
system, offers attractive tax incentives for people to support it and, in that way, unleashes
the ambition and energy of entrepreneurs who compete with eachother for who can
build the best private, non-profit university. Non-profit is a keyword here, and we are
not talking about for-profit enterprises or franchises.
The barrier, of course, to such progress in Greece is Article 16 of the Constitution which
provides that all higher education shall be free and public. Greece is the only country that
I’m aware of that has such a provision in its constitution. Both the Prime Minister and
the current opposition leader are products of American private, non-profit higher
education. They both understand this. About eight months ago they were moving
towards the first stage of amending the Constitution, but that cooperation fell apart for a
variety of political reasons. There is a very strong opposition, as all of you know, to the
very thought of private, non-profit higher education in Greece. There have been
demonstrations just in the past week against it in Greece. In my view, there is an unholy
alliance between students who do not want to see any reduction of the considerable
political power that they have accumulated on university campuses since the eighties and
the privileges that they have, the so called eternal student privileges, to take as long as
they want to go through university, even three or four times the normal length of study.
There have been proposals to limit the length of study to twice the normal period of
degree requirements, but even that is controversial. Students in turn make common cause
with public university faculty who, with many exceptions, tend to oppose the idea of
evaluation, and the whipping boy for their common protest is private non-profit
education.
I do not mean to give the idea that this is a purely Greek problem. It is part of a larger
picture in Europe. Europe has a tradition of public, statist higher education which has a
great many consequences in today’s world. There was an interesting report from the
European Institute of Technology which showed how the modest EU funding available
for university research in Europe is distributed politically without primary reference to
ability to carry out the research in question. So, if you give to Germany you have to take
account of all of the other members of the EU and give to Estonia or Slovenia, for
example, so that everybody gets a piece of the EU research pie. Then, within each
country, the sliver that comes to Greece, for example, is further divided. Greece now
has, with the addition of a proposed international student university, 23 universities and
16 technical institutions. The Government must take account of these 39 potential
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recipients and farm out research money accordingly. This further dilutes potential for
innovative research with the consequence that, relative to Asia or North America, the
level of university research in Europe has plummeted, forfeiting to the corporate sector,
pharmaceuticals for example, responsibility for ground-breaking research. So I do not
find convincing the argument against private, non-profit education that it will entail a
commoditization or commercialization of education. I think the current system is
working in exactly that way.
Elsewhere in Europe, there is a gradual movement away from exclusive reliance on
public education that takes different forms in different countries with Spain and Italy
taking a lead in recognizing private universities. The British also realize that the public
treasury cannot afford the cost of some 140 public universities. Thus, the Blair Bill
imposed tuition, euphemistically called top-up fees, and the impact of that is only now
becoming evident. Initially, top-up fees were capped at relatively low levels, but are
further increased every few years. This will have real world consequences for the 3040,000 Greeks that are studying in Britain, paying the higher living fees in return up-tonow for the free public education available there. That will no longer be the case, and
students will not be able to afford going there. The British see that very clearly and have
been effective within the EU in lobbying for recognition in each country of franchises
and branches of universities headquartered elsewhere in the EU. It does not matter that
these branches are entirely for-profit and, for the most part, of fairly low quality. This is
the catalyst for EU legislation that is now coming down, and coming down very hard, on
Greece. I think the British are obviously conscious of the consistent ratings of top world
universities. The University of Shanghai, for example, year after year shows that on all
criteria for the 10 top world universities, eight are in the United States and two are
abroad, Oxford and Cambridge. Although public institutions, both of the latter are
increasingly mixed and are increasingly partnering with private institutions, as well as
effectively fundraising so that at Oxford and Cambridge only 30% of the operating
budget is state-funded.
We have been talking here about academic accreditation, quite a different thing from
right to work and recognition of professional credentials. It is in this second area that the
legislation I mentioned is coming down on Greece. Specifically, there are two EU
directives, Number 48 of 1989 and Number 36 of 2005. The former has been on the
books longer and has exhausted the appeals process. It has gone through the courts, and
there is no longer a right of appeal. The final decision will be issued by the end of this
year and will have a four-month period for implementation. It requires the recognition of
professional qualifications of degrees awarded by European universities and imposes a
very substantial daily fine which I do not think Greece will want to pay. That will go into
full effect late this spring. A second and more recent directive came into effect October
22nd and is Directive 36 which has a broader spectrum of provisions and detailed
requirements. It now starts a period of two years for applications in particular cases and
then legal challenges and appeals. So how are these two separate processes going to play
out and to affect a private, non-profit school such as ours?
First of all, the revision of Article 16: The New Democracy Prime Minister has
announced the Government’s continuing commitment to this process; however with a
thinner majority in the Parliament of 152, there does not appear to be any way to muster
the 180 votes necessary in the current parliament. There has already been a vote in the
earlier parliament with a New Democracy majority of 165. Had the vote received a
majority of 180, only a simple majority of 151 would now be required, but I do not think
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most people feel that a new vote would command 180, so there are two scenarios that
flow from that. Number 1, if they fail to deal with the issue or receive less than 180
votes, constitutional revision becomes an issue for two future parliaments. That would
push action on this issue, depending on how the elections fall, some four to eight years
into the future. As a second option, the Government has, I understand, a right to restart
the process in October 2008 in this Parliament to be continued in the next parliament
which would shorten the process, if all went well, to between two to four years. Again
this pushes to the longer term any outcome that would affect a school such as ours.
The second track, professional recognition, is however, a present reality with this
legislation taking effect in the spring. I think there is likely to be massive confusion, and I
was struck the other day by an announcement of the President of the Sorbonne,
Professor Jean Robert Pitt. As you probably know, the Sorbonne has announced a
program of graduate degrees in Athens in business and humanities in partnership with
the French Institute there. Pitt in his public statement said that Article 16 is based on
protectionism which does not suit the European Union. I find that a remarkable
statement coming from the French who have such a statist and bureaucratic tradition of
public education. But it shows that France is moving under President Sarkozy in a
reform direction and that Greece is therefore increasingly exposed on this issue. There
has been a tendency in the past on issues like educational reform to follow the French
lead. It is also the case that there continues to be a proliferation of advertisements
throughout Greece for branches of European universities. Here are two examples of
billboards in Thessaloniki. They both say “Recognized by the Greek State”
(
) which is of course
completely false, at least until this legislation takes effect. While some government
officials recognize that this is false advertising and illegal, such billboards remain and
shape the thinking of, sometimes unsophisticated, parents about foreign education. I
would predict that this is going to intensify as more and more for-profit franchises enter
the market following the entry into effect of this legislation. On the one hand, this is bad
for a school like ACT or our sister school, the American College of Greece, because it is
creating a more unequal playing field between the European private institutions and
American counterparts. Possibly over the longer run it will increase pressure for
fundamental reform, but that will require time. In the meantime, the new Minister of
Education is talking about imposing greater controls on Laboratories of Free Studies,
(
) which is the category that we are in.
If I am correct about these general directions, what options does a school such as ours,
have today? Number one, we will clearly continue to work with the US Government to
seek assurances that American institutions that have been in Greece for many, many
years and have made a positive contribution to different levels of education receive equal
treatment. On the other hand, successive American Ambassadors to Greece have taken
up that cause and have not yet been able to prevail. We cannot thus be under any illusion
that education is going to be high on the bilateral agenda which inter alia includes
terrorism, the Macedonian name issue, Cyprus and many other concerns that probably
displace this issue. While education, as a service export from the United States, comes
right after entertainment, there is no Motion Picture Association for education. There is
no Jack Valenti or Dan Glickman to go to bat on this kind of an issue. By contrast, the
portfolio is divided within the US Government between the Commerce, Education and
State Department with frequently conflicting and protectionist advice from lobbies such
as American Architects.
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We will, however, also continue our lobbying efforts. We have formed a group of the
American College of Thessaloniki, the American College of Greece, AIT which is the
Carnegie Mellon branch in Athens and ALBA to coordinate conversations with the
Greek Government. We have also received strong support form the US Chargé in his
representation to the Greek Government. Thirdly, we will continue to upgrade
educational quality in order to be ready, when and if Article 16 is revised, to meet
whatever criteria are put in place. It is generally thought that these criteria will be the
same as those applied to the public universities which seems like a level playing field but
it really is not, in the sense that an institution such as Amherst College would not meet
such criteria which are drawn up on the basis of the public research university model that
we would call a Category 1 research university. All departments, might, for example, be
required to issue the PhD, and to demonstrate an extremely high percentage of faculty
with PhDs and proof of major scientific research which liberal arts colleges would have
difficulty meeting, although I would argue that they substantially reinforce the work of
the public university.
Finally, I think many of us are going to have to investigate British validation which is
something we have resisted for many years in hopes that the Constitution would be
revised. British validation means passing on to students increased costs, paying a British
university that offers validation services a substantial fee and often intrusive bureaucracy
of inspectors, examiners and validators that in our view could lower rather than increase
academic quality. We are already as an institution meeting demands of one the world’s
most rigorous accreditation processes, that of the New England Association of Schools
and Colleges which is the accreditation agency for Harvard, MIT or any of the accredited
New England schools.
That is then how I see things are moving and the impact on us. I would like to say that
we fit into a larger context, and our university division is a full member of the American
Association of International Colleges and Universities. I am serving, for a two-year
period, as President of that group. We are some 20 American universities outside the
United States will full stand-alone American accreditation from one of the seven-US
regional accrediting bodies. Greece, by sheer coincidence, is host to two members,
ourselves and ACG. I think that fact is a substantial resource, when and if the
Constitution is amended and the doors are open for public non-profit higher education. I
also think, that as a network of universities around the world, running from London to
Nigeria, from Paris to Kyrghistan and the United Arab Emirates, this is a unique
resource for the United States in public diplomacy, although not one that Washington
has chosen to use in recent years. I was struck reading about a recent farewell ceremony
for the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy, Karen Hughes, that one of her major
accomplishments was cited as sending the noted baseball star, Carl Ripkin, abroad as a
diplomatic asset for the US. I am sure Ripken is a wonderful representative of the United
States but I think that a network like the AAICU which has established a fabric of ties
over a period of several centuries with key countries around the world and formed, to
some extent, the professional classes and government services in critical countries and
regions, is equally a potent resource although under-appreciated and under-used in recent
years.
In concluding, I’d like to promote in this receptive audience the potential for study
abroad in Greece, and specifically at the American College of Thessaloniki, as a vehicle
to re-Hellenize Greek-American children or grandchildren and, more generally, to
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Hellenize young American men and women of college age. I thank you and look forward
to your questions.
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