| This dissertation studies the relationship between economic development and the development and transformation (and frustrating mismatches) of higher education in Greece. It focuses on the interaction between four sets of variables, i.e., economic (job markets and income levels), social (clientelistic structure and consumerism), political (the political nature of the petty bourgeois state and welfare type of politics providing jobs to "clients") and educational (historical, structural, and organizational, including the legal-formalistic and ideological commitments of the institutions of higher education). It attempts to articulate the forward and backward linkages, flaws and bottlenecks resulting from the interplay of these variables, that is, what really happens via the educational process structure, from competition to enter the universities to the career changes of college graduates. The dissertation focuses primarily on two sequential periods (a) 1960-1975, where the initial pressure for both economic development and educational reforms has been mounted and (b) 1975-1992, when both the economy and the performance of the universities seem to have reached a point of stagnation.;Three main issues are addressed: (1) the exact nature of the relation of higher education and the economy in the concrete Greek context. I explore the way in which the structure of the economy and the nature of the development process constrain and enable the transformation of the universities. For support I examine a number of relevant data sets on the current structure of the Greek economy and the process of job matching in different socio-economic sectors. (2) The failures of the internal organization of the universities. These failures involve purely organizational factors (modes of structure), the development of advanced specialties, and the securing of autonomous financial resources and decision making power. In my analysis I include all technical and legal plans, which are compared in terms of their particular analytical structure and merits or failures. (3) The significance of the political penetration of the universities by the ruling party. This penetration has been overbearing, has transformed many professors into privileged party functionaries, and has over-politicized every aspect of education substantively and procedurally. Furthermore, I analyze the extremely crucial role of the state as patron and employer of educated labor in light of the weakness of the private sector.;I advance the proposition that the overall failure of Greek higher education (including the failure to successfully reform it to date), which is manifested in its overall "unproductive" orientation and the growing rates of unemployment or underemployment of educated people, is due to the elaborate, very specific interlinking and negative articulation among the above sets of factors. I also suggest some ways to restructure the higher educational system intervening at the points of the "weakest links" of the existing vicious chain of interlinkages. |
