Evaluation and Accreditation as policy tools for reformulating the State’s role on Higher Education

Abstract

After the kick-start of the so-called “Bologna Process” (1999) and within the first two decades of its application in Greek Higher Education (from 2005 and thereafter), a series of radical “restructuring” measures of Greek Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) began to unravel. The introduced measures (legislative and other), despite the fact that they have not been based on a structured and open public debate, and on decisions taken by institutionalized, competent and mandatory public authorities, seem to promote the following targets for the Greek HEIs: 1) reduction of public funding, 2) shrinking (qualitative & quantitative) of public HEIs, 3) introduction of private HEIs (something prohibited by the Greek Constitution), and 4) promotion of a “competitiveness” ethos and commodification of the study programs of HEIs. The “glue” that runs through these four targets is the evaluation (the so-called “quality assurance”) and accreditation of HEIs. Through a critical examination of official regulations (laws) and “consultation texts”, both of the respective governments and of institutionalized “independent authorities” that oversee evaluation in HE, we will try to place the various institutional changes within a given spatial-temporal framework (the so-called “socio-historical context”), so that long-term strategies of specific educational policies become apparent, both at the national and international level, especially as regards the European Union (EU) policy for Higher Education and Research. The analysis also stresses issues arising from the globalization of educational policy making and of the homogenization of evaluation practices in HE across the EU, and highlights the role of the Greek “regulatory state” in these developments.