Amphitheater under crisis: the effects of debt and Covid-19 crisis in Greek Higher Education
Georgia Gouga & Ioannis Kamarianos
Abstract
The current study aims to contribute to the discussion of the social dimension of the Higher Education Area under crisis (economic debt crisis, pandemic crisis), regarding the debate concerning social cohesion and the quality of the democratic characteristics of modern western states. Higher education systems all over Europe have been going through considerable changes because of the recent European economic and health crisis (Covid-19). The changes because of the crisis were substantial in Greek Higher Education too. The remaining strength of the structures of the welfare state and specifically of education will be particularly tested by the looming pandemic of COVID-19. A key aspect of the changes because of the crisis is being related to the transformation of the modern welfare state. Respectively in the Amphitheater, the subjective strategies have to face the lack of resources, but also the increase of the cost of the necessary resources that the ‘professionalization’ of the studies introduces, while the State recedes and new organizational forms emerge, as part of a new socio-economic crisis environment.