In an impressive ceremony on Thursday morning, the opening of the Panet University Lefkosia, in the Municipality of Elliniko – Argyroupolis, marking the opening of the branch in Athens.
The ceremonywas addressed by the Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
“It is my great pleasure and emotion to be with you today. When we decided to take the big step and establish branches of foreign universities equal to Greek universities, we had in mind higher education institutions that would be open to the world and aligned with the needs and opportunities of our time.
To establish our country as a global university centre. That is why we did not back down to the attachments of the opposition, which continues the policies of the 1980s instead of turning our gaze together to the Greece of 2030. Progress does not come with a fixation on yesterday,” Kyriakos Mitsotakis said at the beginning of his address.
“Every time I meet prytanis, the word I hear is extroversion. And on the other hand, we have four branches of foreign universities with the prospect of this number exceeding 10,” the Prime Minister stressed.
“There can be absolutely no waiver from the strict criteria set for foreign universities,” he clarified.
“All these constitute a cosmology in the field of Education, our ambition is to make our country an international centre of study. This cannot be done overnight, but the beginning has been made,” he pointed out.
“As you may know, Mr President, Greece is a European exception to the strict constitutional restrictions on the provision of higher education services. The time has now come to put into practice what has been discussed for many decades in the context of a constitutional review, which will be launched in the coming months. We should consider Article 16 to be revisable so that there is no longer any institutional question mark for the operation of such institutions in our country as well,” Mitsotakis stressed.
It should be noted that the President of the Republic of Cyprus Nikos Christodoulides, who inaugurated the new branch, is also in Athens.
Shortly before the official ceremony Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Nikos Christodoulides toured the premises of the new university.
The President of the Republic will be accompanied by the Minister of Education, Sports and Youth of Cyprus Athena Michaelidou, the Deputy Government Spokesman Yiannis Antoniou and officials, while he is expected to return to Nicosia on Thursday afternoon.
Programs
The new university campus, in its first phase of development, will host programs in the fields of Medicine, Law, Pharmacy, Psychology, Business Administration, Accounting, Marketing, Computing and Data Science.
As it was emphasized during the presentation, this is a particularly important milestone for Greek higher education, as it marks the establishment of the first non-state Medical and Law School in the country.
The total area of the university will reach 150,000 sq.m, while its development will be carried out in three phases: the second phase is expected to be completed by 2028 and the third by 2031.
