In the context of human capital theory, from the 1960s onwards, education in Greece was treated as an important public investment and educational expenditure increased significantly. In view of two priorities, which were modernization and economic development, the education system itself was expected to be modernized and special emphasis was placed on post-secondary technical education, especially by international organizations.
The OECD and especially the World Bank (through funding) strongly encouraged the establishment of post-secondary technical educational institutions (TTEs) in the early 1970s, a process that took place during the dictatorship. These institutions were criticized for serving the needs of foreign capital and contributing to the dependent economic development of the country. The OECD's Mediterranean Regional Plan, which emphasized higher technical and vocational education, was associated with the modernist school of development and was strongly criticized for being against the strengthening of domestic educational institutions and the promotion of any self-reliance. In the end, the failure of KATEEs was attributed, by university officials, to social reasons (students did not prefer KATEEs for studies, as only university education was valued) and to political reasons (KATEEs served limited financial goals). The educational reforms of the 1960s and 1970s were in the context of "manpower needs" planning, with a reduction in the number of entrants to higher education.
The difficulties in modernizing the Greek education system and the failure of the reform were attributed by scholars to the absence of wider changes in the social context and the nature of the Greek state
The major priorities of modernization and economic development continued to dominate the education agenda. Since the early 1980s, a number of important reforms in higher education have taken place. Two important laws were passed, one of which concerned the restructuring of universities (law 1268/1982) and the other provided for the establishment of TEIs (law 1404/1983). The introduction of TEIs was in line with the above-mentioned priorities and these new institutions would contribute to the self-sustainable development, which was aimed at the inclusion of Greece in the group of "advanced nation-states".
With their establishment in the early 1980s, the TEIs were partly an expression of the version of the modernization of the higher education system, within the plans of the then social democratic government. Education should foster changes in society alongside its own change. The pressure to modernize and democratize education was also linked to the importance Greek society attached to education.
The difficulties in modernizing the Greek educational system and the failure of the reform were attributed by scholars to the absence of wider changes in the social context and the nature of the Greek state. The innovations introduced in higher education in the early 1980s were not followed by radical reforms during the rest of the period of the 1980s and 1990s. A number of university reorganization laws followed each other with minor amendments until in the early 1990s, but the primary law (1268/1982) on HEIs appeared to dominate. In the 1990s, public debates about universities in the European context seemed to be non-issues for Greece. Also, in the entire education system, there was no national level quality assessment process. Other public debates concerned the plan for modernization taking place in the context of a sluggish labor market, thus pointing to problems in the wider socio-economic and political context. However, the question of modernization returned to the debate in the context of the perspective of Greece joining the European Union, on equal terms.
Economic efficiency, a prominent issue in the previous period (with the establishment of KATEEs to create a technically skilled workforce, as well as to relieve universities of the pressure to admit to them), continued to dominate the reforms of the 1980s. TEIs would contribute to modernization and economic development, this time understood as self-sustaining. TEIs (in collaboration with HEIs) would promote a local, application-oriented scientific and technological infrastructure in a two-way relationship with productive enterprises in local communities. The logic used by the government at the time included international experience, i.e. the importance of developments in other countries. Indeed, Greece adopted the higher education model proposed by UNESCO.
It is important to emphasize that the other strand of effectiveness concerned the harmonization of the higher education system. TEIs, upgraded and expanded, would – as part of higher education – relieve universities of large numbers of students, in a context of strong social demand for higher education. The harmonization of the internal structure and operation of HEIs was carried out in the self-governance of the institutions, in the laws of academic freedom, in the democratic decision-making process, and through the requirement for high academic qualifications of the teaching staff of TEIs. TEIs were expected to contribute to the rationalization of the higher education system by relieving universities (which were assessed as ineffective and inefficient) of large numbers of students and by offering study programs linked to production specializations. The division of labor would be under the terms of the distinction between the theoretically minded university graduates and their more practically oriented counterparts from the TEIs. With the logic of efficiency, which meant modernization and self-sufficient development, emphasis was placed on the orientation of TEIs towards productive applications and applied research. The highly applied orientation of TEIs was evident through the type of teaching, their staff, their specializations and their mission statements. In contrast, HEIs were more theoretically oriented. Student admission policies were almost the same for both TEIs and HEIs, although there were some special arrangements regarding admission to TEIs.
The notion of equality, while in the earlier period it reflected concerns about a) "inflows" into education, expressed in the 1964 reform, which referred to the expansion of the education system (though not higher education) and b) with "democratization", through the reform of 1976-1977 (which did not give much emphasis in this regard to post-secondary technical education), during the 1980s, equality meant the expansion of the entire system of higher education education and the upgrading of technological higher education. In the higher education reforms in the 1980s, the establishment of TEIs was within the logic of reducing inequality in educational opportunities. The reform of this period was characterized by the "social demand" approach to educational planning. Compared to the previous period, a greater variety of study programs was offered in higher education, while the entire education system was expanded. The argument for equality of educational opportunities was expressed by the increase in the number of students entering higher education, especially technological higher education (TEIs). The upgrading of higher technical education – accompanied by rhetoric around the social rehabilitation of technical/vocational education – was part of the plan for equal educational opportunity.
The above developments were in the context of statements that the purposes of education serve people and the formation of their social identity, awareness and critical thinking for any collective effort. Education, as a key area of action of the welfare state, would reduce the inequality of educational opportunities. However, it was argued that democratization measures during this period legitimized socio-economic inequalities, as the majority of TEI students had a working-class background.
In the end, despite rising unemployment – especially for TEI graduates – the promotion of the non-university sector continued throughout the 1990s. This was due, in part, to the need to expand the tertiary education system. education with the aim of satisfying social demand and avoiding a further increase in Greek students who would study abroad.
In general, there were tensions between equality and efficiency in the state agenda, and then, in times of political change, an effort was made to balance these goals and to harmonize the higher education system, which increased with the rise to power of the Social Democratic government. , which developed a rhetoric of applications of science in practice and the contribution of technological higher education to equality of thought and action, thereby seeking to strengthen the plan for equality.
In the 1980s, the establishment of the non-university sector of higher education (TEIs) was an expression of the modernization of the higher education system for its contribution to modernization and self-sustaining economic development, and this was the importance of efficiency for the case of Greece, as the concept of "market" had not yet entered the policy agenda for higher education, in contrast to other European countries (e.g. France and Germany). However, the non-response of technological higher education in achieving the goal of economic efficiency, due to the characteristics of the Greek economic and political context, referred to the other part of the plan for efficiency, which appeared to be particularly critical. It was about relieving universities of the burden of large numbers of students, as there was an extremely strong social demand for higher education.
It was within this logic that higher technological education was upgraded and access to it increased significantly. But such efforts took place in a sociological and cultural context. In Greece, students and their parents valued only university-level education, which partly explains the phenomenon of the "academic tilt" of the non-university sector of higher education in the decades that followed.
*Eleni Prokou is an Associate Professor of Educational Policy at the Department of Social Policy at Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences.