Panhellenic Examinations 2021: The Minimum Admission Base cuts 30,000 students from the universities

The Minimum Admission Base to Universities, which will be applied for the first time this year in the national examinations, is expected to «cut» more than 30 thousand high school graduates of all categories. This means that many departments, especially in regional universities, will be left without students, and as a result, they will gradually disappear from the map of higher education.

Already, all the Universities, as required by law, sent to Ministry of Education, their decision on the coefficient for determining the Minimum Import Base (MIB) for the importation of students in 2021 in their departments.

As they point out university professors, unfortunately the EBE is used as a tool to close departments, while they stress that it has become a cause for political interventions even confrontations from Members of the province and local actors who exert pressure to ensure the minimum basis for the survival of the parts of provincial towns, which are in fact have been supported with huge funds and infrastructure by local government.

As the report shows on the proposals sent by the universities to the Ministry of Education, the EBE in many departments will work as a «cutter» for the admission to universities of thousands of third grade students, who will seek outlets for their studies outside public universities.

As can be seen from the proposals made by the HEIs, many departments especially in the central universities saw the introduction of the EBE, as a way of reducing their admissions (something they've wanted for years) and so they set the maximum factor (1.20). On the other side, the regional universities they put the lower rate in most of their departments in order not to run out of students.

As experts point out, this year's exams will be extremely difficult for students, as will have to «read» even more now if they want to have a chance of winning a position in higher education as the EBE will «throw them out» of universities. What is certain is that both students and their parents have no understand the implications that the introduction of the EBE will have, especially for those at a low grade level.

Last year, the admission rate to universities reached almost 88% , breaking all records, but this year the situation will change as the admission rate will not particularly outperform the 65-66% which means that one in three will be left out of higher education. Of course as expected and as can be seen from the tables sent by the universities to the Ministry of Education all the sought-after departments (Medical, Law, Economics, Engineering, etc.) have set the maximum rate of EPE, i.e. 1.20 .  

Without students the regional universities

As the rector of the university stresses Mr. Trantafylos Albanis of Ioannina, «we sent to the ministry the rates of EBE only for 10 sections which we believe are at risk of losing their students, rather than the other 13. We had stated from the outset our disagreement with the introduction of the Minimum Admission Base as regional universities will be seriously affected. In Epirus we will lose 800-1000 jobs every year, which means that in 4 years we will lose 4,000 students from our departments.».

At the University of Ioannina, the Senate decided not to determine a coefficient for the minimum admission base (MBE), but only the optimal number of admissions for most departments of the University. Nevertheless, in order to ensure the viability of some Departments, which in previous national examinations had a low admission base, it approved the proposals of these Departments to adopt coefficients below 1.0.

These choices were made under the pressure created by the new legislative framework, which in our opinion is not based on academic criteria. The choices made by the University of the Aegean, which has 18 departments on six islands (Lesvos, Lemnos, Rhodes, Samos, Chios, Samos and Syros). As stressed in the vice-rector Mr. Papageorgiou, «in most departments we gave the minimum factor as we are likely to see a decline in the student population. Because of the economic situation mainly but also for other reasons, young people prefer to study at universities near their place of residence. Therefore, the choice of the Aegean islands for studies is difficult».

The proposals of the Universities to the Ministry of Education for their departments

University of Patras

University of Athens

Agricultural University