Creeping degree recognition

DAMIAN MAC CON ULADH

LESS than a fortnight in office, recently-appointed Education Minister Aris Spiliotopoulos has been presented with a Greek court decision that indirectly undermines the essence of recent laws in the contentious private college sector.

In a decision announced on January 20, the Administrative Court of Athens found against the Hellenic National Academic Recognition and Information Centre (Doatap), the country's authority for validating foreign university degrees, because it had acted "illegally" in refusing to recognise the degrees of a registered "liberal arts institution" (KES) with institutional links to a prominent French university.

The college that took the action, the Institution d'Etudes Francophones (IdEF), is an affiliate of the University of Paris 13. According to the IdEF, which is based in Panormou, northern Athens, its students are enrolled at Paris 13 and "have the same student status and receive the same education" as their counterparts in France. As such, they are awarded the same degrees, it says.

The IdEF case, which the college initiated in 2005, rested on the argument that while Doatap has the right to deliberate on whether the actual course of study offered by such an institution is equivalent academically to those available at Greek state universities, it may not refer to the franchise nature of liberal arts colleges in doing so.

Face value

In other words, Doatap must deal with the face value of such degrees - in this case, degrees from Paris 13 - and not the institutional conditions under which they were awarded.

The Athens court ruled that it was immaterial whether some or all of the courses took place in Greece at a private institution or under the terms of a franchise agreement.

Finding that Doatap had damaged the college's reputation in "illegally" refusing to recognise the degrees of IdEF students, the court awarded the college 20,000 euros in compensation.

In making its decision, the court referred to a 1989 EU directive (89/48/EEC), the purpose of which is to make it easier for professionals in one EU member state to practise their profession in another, as well as articles 48 and 49 of the treaty establishing the European Community, which cover freedom of movement.

In ruling that the Greek state must also recognise the degrees issued by, and not just the professional qualifications earned through, franchises in Greece, this court decision goes a step further than a European Court of Justice (ECJ) verdict, passed last October, which referred only to the issue of recognising professional qualifications.

Focus on Doatap

As the issue of professional qualification recognition is in the remit of another official body, the Council Responsible for Recognising Professional Equivalence of Higher Education Qualifications (SAEITTE), the ruling moves the focus to the work of Doatap.

In finding that the franchise nature of the colleges may not be questioned, the decision also casts doubts on the legality of recent laws that the education ministry established to regulate the private college sector.

On January 20, the new minister refused to comment on when he plans to publish a presidential decree on the issue of professional qualification recognition. The decree, which will incorporate the recent ECJ ruling, was promised by this summer by his immediate predecessor, Evripidis Stylianidis.

On January 21, Spiliotopoulos emphasised that as this was a "first instance" ruling, there was "a long way to go before a final decision could be made".

However, sources within the ministry say that it plans to appeal the decision.


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Call to talks falls on deaf ears

Education Minister Aris Spiliotopoulos' call to a new national dialogue on all aspects of the Greek education system, which he promised would take place on a "tabula rasa" (clean sheet), has met with a varied response from opposition parties.

In advance of a parliamentary debate on education, scheduled for January 23, main opposition Pasok launched its own white paper, which calls for "mass access to quality higher education" and radical changes to the secondary school system.

The parties of the left flatly rejected the call to talks. "The Communist Party [KKE] will not take part in any debate when a series of contrived laws has passed in recent years which has aggravated the educational system and the popular classes," said KKE leader Aleka Papariga.

Alekos Alavanos, parliamentary chairman of Syriza, said that "there was no tabula rasa, no clean sheet, just a page full of misspellings and scribble on the government's state education policies".