A Greek Australian plan to make Greece an education centre

Bill Papastergiadis, left, with attendees at the Delphi Economic Forum. Right, N. Laryggakis.

  Photo: Supplied

Greece needs to be a centre for international education said Mr Bill Papastergiadis speaking from Athens to Neos Kosmos.

“It doesn’t have to be just tourism,” was his message to the 5th Delphi Economic Forum in Athens this week.

A centre of democracy, the birthplace of the academy, should exploit its past as an education hub, said the President of the Greek Community of Melbourne, (GCM).

“A country with deep history in politics, language, culture, with an incredible climate and a hospitable people should also be the epicentre for education.”

Mr Papastergiadis who also sits on the Melbourne University Humanities Foundation Board asked at his first board meeting, “Tell me how many relationships we have with universities across the world?”

The university pointed to partnerships in the EU, United Kingdom, North America, and Asia. He asked the same question of Monash University and RMIT.

“When I asked how many universities had relationships within Greece, and they all said zero!”

For Mr Papastergiadis the issue is cultural, educational, and economic.

“I believe Greece needs to develop bilateral agreements with countries and with other universities.

At the forum he said foreign students, will enhance Greece’s cities. “They will grow as cosmopolitan, multicultural capitals”.

“The students bring another layer of complexity; through the way Greeks will see the world and open themselves to the world.

“You need to become a key ‘destination’ for educational excellence” was Mr Papastergiadis’ message to the Greek and international academics, government policy, and business leaders at the forum.

“The Greek Community of Melbourne has set up a centre for the study of the global Hellenic Diaspora at the University of Melbourne and the Greeks should set up three of them, in Athens, in Thessaloniki and in Patra.”

Mr Papastergiadis highlighted the boost to the Victorian economy from international students.

“Pre COVID, we had 700,000 international students that created $32 billion, imagine how that would transform the Greek economy, and it would work parallel to the tourism economy.

“Greece’s tourism economy sits around $35 billion pre COVID, imagine if one added a more global education system in the centre of the world, the cradle of democracy.”

Mr Papastergiadis says that presenting courses in English was essential.

“Some changes are occurring now; Greece has a medical degree offered in English.”

He went on to say that effective and efficient housing market is important to deal with an influx of students and that it would stimulate the Greek economy further.

Mr Papastergiadis praised the 5th Delphi Economic Forum as “efficient and professional”.

“It’s a new Greece and the conference represented that.”

The facilitators of the forum were young, tech savvy, and “have an open view or the world and are leading the way.”

The President of the GCM said that everyone “accepts the inherent structural problems that Greece encounters”.

However, he rang a note of optimism.

“There’s a fresh wind blowing through and that’s evidenced in the forum, and their ability to attract some of the brightest people from around the world.”

The Delphi Economic Forum, brings together academic and “thought leaders” to influence “socially responsible growth policies for Europe, the “Eastern Mediterranean and Greece.”

“I made a point in my talk that we don’t want to change Greece fundamentally from abroad, we love the slower pace, the filotimo, that great South-eastern Mediterranean feel about the country that draws you back.

“What we want to do is support the ability for people to do what they do more efficiently and to be better presented for a global market.”

Mr Papastergiadis listed several things that the Greek Community is doing such as the development of the cultural centre within the Community’s 15-storey building in Melbourne.

He will try to organise discussions between the Minister for Culture Lina G. Mendoni and key Greek Australian artists and the Victorian creative sector in late April. Ms Mendoni is here in late April for the launch of Open Horizons: Ancient Greek Journeys and Connection at the Melbourne Museum. Mr Papastergiadis wants Greece to be more connected with Greek Australian arts and humanities.