Abstract:

Higher Education in Greece consists of Universities and Technological Educational Institutions (TEI). The Vision of the Ministry of Education concerning Higher Education includes transformation and development of a modern extrovert and dynamic Institution of Higher Education, which will not stick to its academic role but will act upon private economic criteria which will help its growth and competiveness in addition to redefining its role, contributing to the social environment in an active way. This paper deals with the extroversion of the Greek Technological Educational Institutions (TEI).

This research focuses on the recent higher education Reform Plans and examines actions and initiatives adopted by the Higher Educational Institutes over the last years, regarding the keystones of extroversion; more specifically
(a) openness to local society and stakeholders,
(b) search for new funding and sponsoring for research,
(c) encouraging the mobility between students, researchers and professors and
(d) alongside co-operation on a level of under-graduate and post graduate studies.

The results of the research reveal that most TEI use several keystones of extroversion while the level of adaptation depends on the size (small/ big), the location (central/peripheral) and the flexibility of the Institutions. A few good practices from the categories (a) and (d) mentioned above are presented, which have been adopted by several Institutions and may as well prove to be a guide for other Institutions so that gradually a modern extrovert and dynamic Greek TEI becomes a reality. On the other hand, the most important factor to be kept in mind is that even though the TEI are supposed to be independent and self managed, the Ministry of Education is making the most important decisions (eg the number of academic staff to be recruited, the number of accepted students, the annual budget).

Keywords:

Extroversion, mobility, cross-Institution collaboration, Technological educational institution (TEI), Greece.