The Evaluation and the Accreditation Process of Greek HEIs with an Emphasis on Primary Education - Author’s critique and proposal

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Aran

This paper examines how Greek higher education institutions are evaluated and accredited, with a specific focus on universities providing comprehensive primary education programs. It outlines eight principles-criteria used by the Hellenic Quality Assurance and Accreditation Agency (HQA) and analyzes scoring patterns. The analysis argues that evaluations yield uniformly noncompliant-free outcomes, despite alleged subjectivity and bias, while international rankings and research performance reveal weaker results among high-scoring departments. It concludes that HQA-based assessment is ineffective and proposes objective alternatives centered on teaching evaluations and research evidence.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages14

Reading Time35 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Quality assurance and accreditation organizations

Greek HQA: structure and role

Eight principles-criteria for evaluation

The Evaluation and the Accreditation Process of Greek HEIs with an Emphasis on Primary Education Departments * By Gregory T. Papanikos This paper examines the quality evaluations of the Greek Universities highlighting those which offer a full-fledged study program of primary education. There are eight principles-criteria according to which each university is evaluated. For each principle, scores may range from 1 (noncompliance with the principle) to 4 (fully compliance). I present and compare results of the Greek university evaluations completed by the Hellenic Quality Assurance and Accreditation Agency (HQA). Surprisingly, no university has been graded as non-compliant in any of the eight principles-criteria. These evaluations are performed by an alleged “external” and “independent” committee. For all practical purposes, they are, nevertheless, based on subjective and biased opinions of academics affiliated with international universities with links to Greece and its universities. Independent and evidence-based evaluations paint a different picture. Universities which get perfect scores in the quality evaluation processes perform badly in the pertinent international ranking systems. As a case study, their primary education departments have lower research performance with high variability between faculty members and departments. Given that one criterion of evaluating quality is research, then not all Greek universities can be evaluated as highly performing research institutions, either in absolute or relevant terms. This criterion of quality is not satisfied by the primary education departments of Greek universities. According to this evidence, using the HQA asan agency to assess and accredit quality is useless. It should be abolished. A new system should be based on objective criteria such as independent teaching evaluations and research performance. These do not require any committee to evaluate performance and can be constructed on evidence-based policy. The latter relies solely on rigorously established objective facts. Keywords: higher education, quality assurance, HQA, teaching quality, Greece Introduction Quality assurance and excellence in higher education of both teaching and researching is a critical issue in Europe and North America. Specialized accreditation organizations provide the service of organizing the evaluation process and accredit universities and study programs. In Europe, the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) ([https://enqa.eu/](https://enqa.eu/)) and in USA the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) ([https://](https://)[ ](https://)[www.chea.org/](www.chea.org/)) and the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) ([https://www.abet.org/](https://www.abet.org/)) are well known examples of organizations which * President, Athens Institute for Education and Research, Greece; Honorary Professor of Economics, University of Stirling, UK; and Professor, MLC Ljubljana, Slovenia. provide evaluations, quality assurances and accreditation of university study programs. The literature on the subject of quality and excellence in education is huge. The concept of excellence in higher education institutions (HEIs) is discussed in a working paper published by ENQA (2014). New challenges coming from colleges that offer non-accredited courses are discussed by Ransom, Knepler, and ZapataGietl (2018); mainly massive open online courses (MOOCs). On the effectiveness of online courses see Bettinger, Loeb, and Taylor (2017) and McPherson and Bacow (2015). Similar to this research is the pilot project by Oberhelman and Dunn (2019). The COVID-19 pandemic has also “forced” HEIs to turn into online options/courses (see Pinchbeck and Heaney [2022], Ismaili and Ibrahimi [2021], Güvercin, Kesici, and Akbaşlı [forthcoming], and Samoylenko, Zharko, and Glotova [2022] for more on distance education). School quality and postsecondary attainment are disc

FAQs

What evaluation framework does the paper describe for Greek HEIs?

The paper describes an evaluation model using eight principles-criteria. Each university receives scores from 1 (noncompliance) to 4 (full compliance) for each principle.

What concern does the paper raise about HQA evaluations?

It questions the objectivity of the process, arguing that committees rely on subjective and possibly biased academic opinions rather than independent evidence-based evaluation.

Why does the paper criticize the accreditation system based on HQA?

It claims that even universities with perfect scores in quality evaluation perform poorly in relevant international ranking systems and that research performance in primary education departments is weaker and varies widely, so the criterion of research quality is not satisfied.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Aran