The adequate preparation of prospective teachers for the demands of contemporary educational reality depends on the quality and relevance of the studies provided in their initial teacher education. Consequently, it is important to examine both the curriculum offered in the initial education of elementary school teachers and to focus on their satisfaction with it, as well as its connection to the labor market. In this paper, we will focus on the latter. The purpose of our research was to investigate the satisfaction of future primary school teachers with the curriculum and its connection to the job market. The research was based on a multi-methodological approach, using a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews as research tools. The study included graduating students of the direction of primary education of the Department of Education and Social Work (DES & SW) at the University of Patras (103 for the quantitative study and 16 for the qualitative study). The results showed that student satisfaction with the curriculum depends on how well it aligns with the labor market. Furthermore, the relationship between the “Curriculum and sense of professional preparedness” has a positive effect on students’ satisfaction when they believe that their studies prepare them for the classroom. Conversely, it has a negative effect when they feel that the courses taught are more theoretical and do not prepare them for entering the profession.

El texto aborda la cuestión de la relación de los estudiantes de un departamento que forma maestros en Grecia con el saber. La pregunta inicial era si se alcanzaban los resultados de aprendizaje esperados del programa de estudios. Inicialmente se utilizó una metodología cuantitativa (cuestionario). Sin embargo, el hecho de que las respuestas de los estudiantes de primero y cuarto año fueran relativamente similares llevó a utilizar una metodología cualitativa (inicialmente grupos focales y, posteriormente, entrevistas semiestructuradas). La investigación puso de manifiesto la importancia de las experiencias escolares previas, la existencia de patrones estructurados de «buenos» y «malos» profesores, y el predominio de la percepción profesional de los estudios. Como resultado, los estudiantes relacionan la enseñanza y la práctica con lo que es importante, mientras que menosprecian el saber teórico. En conclusión, se plantea la cuestión de la eficacia de los estudios universitarios y su capacidad para replantear, deconstruir y/o reconstruir los conocimientos empíricos previos de los estudiantes.

The current study aims to record and explore students' transformative university experience during the Emergency Remote Teaching and Learning (ERTL) process in Greece, both during and after the pandemic. To understand the impact of transitioning to the Emergency Remote Teaching and Learning (ERTL) process and back (in the post-COVID era), a tailored research design was developed in three phases. The initial phase of the study (at the beginning of the experience of the ERTL) involved examining the student population's perceptions of the educational situation at the onset of the pandemic crisis. The survey sample conducted during the pandemic refers to 332 students from six (6) departments of the University of Patras in four (4) disciplines. In the second phase of the research design (during the experience), the objective was to explore the experience of transitioning to Emergency Remote Teaching and Learning/ERTL) during the pandemic crisis. The survey sample conducted during the pandemic refers to 742 students from six (6) departments of the University of Patras in four (4) disciplines (January 31, 2021, to February 15, 2021). As the analysis of the data from the second phase indicated a significant variation in the experience of ERTL among students who studied education in comparison to those who pursued other faculties (e.g., engineering, medicine, marketing), the third phase (after the experience) was focused on investigating the experience of future teachers, as they were regarded as pivotal multipliers of experience. Thus, in the third phase of the research design, the objective was to explore the impact of transitioning to forced remote teaching and learning (ERTL) during the post-pandemic period, following the conclusion of the pandemic crisis response. The survey sample was conducted after the COVID-19 period and included 101 students from two departments of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Patras (January 2024 to May 2024). The findings reveal that students perceived the institution as being effectively prepared for ERTL (80.4%), with faculty adapting effectively to online teaching (66.7%) and online examinations of courses (60.7%). Satisfaction with face-to-face services increased significantly post-pandemic (e.g., 90.8% for library access), though qualitative critiques highlighted persistent infrastructural underfunding. A generational shift towards flexible learning has emerged, with 34.3% of students preferring to choose blended learning environments, while only 28.4% advocating exclusively for face-to-face education. While ERTL offered pragmatic benefits, such as reduced commute time (valued by 74.3%) and lower expenses (cited by 63.5%), relational and pedagogical challenges persisted, with less than 20% reporting enhanced peer collaboration or teaching staff communication. Data analysis revealed lasting societal changes, including digital modernization, erosion of social bonds, a renewed appreciation for in-person education, and persistent health-related anxieties. The study concludes that ERTL catalysed both innovation and inequity, highlighting, in our case, the need for balanced, resilient educational frameworks that integrate technological flexibility with human-centred pedagogy. According to our data, the individual experiences and institutional memory of the crisis continue to influence contemporary Greek higher education, advocating for equity-driven policies and hybrid learning environments. Article visualizations:

In the present paper, we attempt to present and analyze the levels of trust in the school unit, both the existence of trust relationships and the degree to which they exist, as well as the quality that characterizes them. We focus on differentiated professional identities and whether these are related to levels of trust. The structural condition of the permacrisis is particularly important for the study. The fact that Greece's recent social, economic, and political context has been characterized by volatility also adds significant weight to the study. The debt crisis, as the starting point of the successive crises, the permacrisis, has brought about insecurity and uncertainty. At the same time, the social subject cannot act within the social and economic context. The permacrisis is a compound word, defined as a prolonged period of instability and insecurity, incorporating all the crises. Health, economic, environmental, and geopolitical crises, and the social subject's sense of yet another anticipated crisis. All these individual mosaics that each crisis brings gradually make up the setting for the diversification of the professional identity of the teacher. We chose mixed methods research as the methodological approach, combining quantitative and qualitative approaches. Questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were used as research data collection tools. The target population included teachers and primary school headteachers of primary education school units in Western Greece. The research sample was extracted from these populations through simple random sampling, ensuring the sample's representativeness. This research, including the quantitative and qualitative approaches, was conducted from May 2023 to February 2024. The main results include that the condition of the permacrisis is gradually entering the micro level, negating the linear, and replacing it with the liquid. The risk society is no longer located only in the theoretical sphere but also in the lifeworld, in the everyday life of the social subject. We observed that it is evident that the social subject, and in our case, the teacher and the headteacher, is trying to cope with multiple changes and incorporate structural crisis, liquidity, and subjective risk into his actions. Several conceptualizations emerge by linking the phenomenon of the permacrisis with the phenomenon of the trust crisis. Article visualizations:

Student dropout is a global phenomenon. For many reasons (individual, social, political, economic), it is considered a serious problem. The specialized bibliography usually deals either with all students or it focuses specifically on new students. However, there is not much comparative research on how to structure the thought of dropping out of university between new and experienced students. This is the aim of this text. Based on 1,029 students’ questionnaires, the quantitative study has shown that the way this thought is constructed is differentiated between new and experienced students. In other words, it is made up of a combination of different factors. For new students, the effect of the social representation ‘university’ and the motivation on the basis of this representation play a central role. On the contrary, when it comes to experienced students, the difficulties of university studies and especially the formulated perception of global student life seem to play the key role.

Drop out is a phenomenon imparted of complexity, factorial polysynthesis, and diversity of consequences unfortunately negative in nature. Thus, a thorough comprehension and analysis of the factors affecting drop out and the tendency to it, are crucial. In this paper, the latter is examined in an effort to enlighten the causes behind the manifestation of drop out so as appropriate interventions are applied. In this respect, the present work focused on those factors that exert direct or indirect influence of positive or negative nature on the way students cope with university studies, overcome obstacles and value the university experience. The research was conducted at the University of Patras on a student sample with 696 valid questionnaires. The findings indicate that the principal factors behind the tendency to drop out are the students’ frustration, the absence from their obligatory academic duties, and dissatisfaction with their cognitive subject. On the contrary, the primary factors decreasing the students’ tendency to drop out are the sense of effectiveness in their studies, the perception of gaining valuable things from studying at university, and the creation of good relationships with their fellow students and university teachers.

The State has always been the main source of funding as far as research is concerned in Greece. However, Greek governments have never drafted one concrete, longitudinal set of national priorities to this end. Furthermore, they cut public resources available to Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) as far as 60% in the midst of the economic crisis (Pruvot et al., EUA, Public Funding Observatory Report 2018. EUA, 2018). In contrast, participation in the European Research Area (ERA) both provided a set of priorities for research –a research policy- and comprised one significant alternative form of funding for Greek Universities. Hence, HEIs have adopted a bottom-up approach with the aim to support efforts by research-groups and/or individual academics to take part in international consortia and attract funding. In light of these developments, the paper addresses the issues of the relation between internationalised research and national development, especially in the case of Greece, and the role of HEIs as producers of scientific knowledge and innovation in the context of a national society, specifically the Greek society.

The covid-19 pandemic has led to a violent adjustment of university education to distance learning. This paper examines the impact of distance education on the pedagogical relationship between university teachers and students. Our sample includes both university teachers and students of Greek universities. The analysis of the data shows that the majority of both university teachers and students consider distance education necessary, although individual differences are apparent. It is also important to stand by a significant minority of both teachers and students who have a different opinion. Two concluding formulations stand out. First, that distance education is here to stay and that it enriches university teaching by making it more flexible. Second, that more research is needed on the effects of distance education on the pedagogical relationship between teacher and students.

The article focuses on the issue of the incorporation of non-formal types of lifelong learning (LLL) services delivery into the Greek Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). During the past three decades, this issue appears to have received significant attention as a result of relevant policies promoted worldwide and the strong political will demonstrated by the European states. After briefly presenting the consecutive stages of LLL incorporation into HEIs , the article will emphasise the incorporation of LLL into the Greek Universities and, especially, non-formal types of learning services delivery. The University has been undergoing a series of constant, rapid and profound transformations, in the last few years, that have, on the one hand, turned it into a vast and multi-dimensional organization and on the other, present it with unprecedented dilemmas and perils . Among these, one of the most fundamental pertains to the severe impact induced by the adoption of non-formal types of learning by the University, which may act in a corrosive and/or rejuvenating and modernising way on what we are used to calling the University.

The aim of the present study is the contribution to the discussion on the investigation of the relationship of the future teacher to knowledge. We believe that the investigation into the above relationship is particularly important, as it refers both to the identity formation of future teachers and to the quality of the actual university studies in our country. Following the theoretical scheme of the French intellectual B. Charlot, and in opposition to other research on “rapport au savoir”, we wanted to investigate the relationship of “good students” with their studies, in the context of a Department that trains teachers. Briefly, through our research it appears that the effect of the profession is of utmost importance. Furthermore, we believe that it is particularly important that this study will allow us to identify and showcase the significance of the theoretical scheme of the French intellectual for the Greek educational reality.

The article discusses problems which emerged while we were conducting research on student dropout. The term student dropout refers to individuals who leave school before completing compulsory education. These problems relate mostly to the difficulty of those who have dropped out from talking about their own experience . The research was carried out in Greece in 2018 and 2019. In Greece, student dropout has fallen considerably in recent years to among the lowest in Europe. Nevertheless it remains a problem. Our aim is to present this difficulty, the consequences on the production of data, and the ways in which they were dealt with. We investigate the causes and consequences of this refusal, through the eyes of the people who abandoned school.

In response to the need for more research evidence, as an empirical base for discussion on the experiences of young people, the current study aims to contribute to the discussion on their attitudes and behaviors in times of pandemic crisis. It is of great importance, that under the pressure of social limits on social distancing for the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19), young students have to adapt more efficiently with new technologies both every day and for educational practices, where their experiences involve multiple, complex and overlapping social and digital universes. According to the findings of this study, it is clear that as long as universities were closed, most of the/our young students did not have any difficulty in switching to online teaching. In addition, the participants' responses show that as Gen Z’s, they want to have the ability to learn new skills and make new experiences.Article visualizations:

Nowadays, policy makers and scientists are promoting the idea that students should be involved in shaping their curriculum, as an essential dimension of student centered learning.After a brief discussion of this idea, we attempt to uncover which competences the students consider to be important.For this, we carried out relevant research in a Department of Primary Education in Greece with students in the final year of their initial education.The material used comes from the Tuning program.The research results reveal that students prioritize the competences that are directly linked to the school classroom, the act of teaching and school matters and place less importance on competences which are considered significant by the specialists and the policy makers, according to the specific bibliography.It seems that the students' beliefs are more pragmatic and based on their previous school experience.However, this doesn't facilitate innovative interventions and adjustments to new developments and trends.So, the question posed is: in the case of divergence between specialists and students regarding the curriculum, how could the issue be resolved?

The objective of this text is to proceed to an analysis of international classifications and their impact on two levels: a) their unexpected public success, and b) their decisive influence on higher education policy and strategy. We argue that defining quality assurance is crucial in order to legitimize choices about evaluation on a political and institutional level. In any case, it seems clear that rankings are a dubious construction but highly legitimized by the public and governments. So, under these circumstances, rankings are here and they will probably stay, together with the financial issues they create. Indeed, rankings are an interesting new global market product which universities seem to have to negotiate wisely.

This paper focuses on the development of interdisciplinarityin the Master’s programs in Greek universities. For our analysis, we searched for tools from the Sociology of Organisations (Mayntz) and the Sociology of Science (Whitley). We argue that the University and its keyactors have adopted interdisciplinarity, firstly, as a means to increase institutional funding, and secondly, with care so as not to disturb theinternal institutional structure and the power relations between the key actors in the University. Indeed, on the one hand, universities, responding to the public calls for interdisciplinary programs, took advantage of the European support program for Greece in order to enrich their infrastructures. On the other hand, the new structures and functions (interdisciplinary Master’s programs) remain loose and weak. So the central role of the Department and laboratories remains intact. As a consequence, the internal relations of the institutional actors are protected. Thus, interdisciplinarity seems to be a low priority issue. However, it is interesting to consider that more than 10 years after theend of European funding, the majority of these programs remains active.

This paper focuses on competences for primary education teachers, which have to be developed during their initial education. Furthermore, we will try to link the discussion on learning outcomes to a comprehensive framework of social needs, central political choices, the strategies of specialized University Departments and students’ preferences. To achieve our aim, we will present the results of a research carried out with students in the last year of their initial teacher education at a Greek University (University of Patras). The research used a questionnaire based on competences proposed by Tuning for the scientific field of Education. The results highlight two main points: a) the persistence of tradition and the power of reproduction; b) the difficulty of tuning and harmonizing social needs, political choices, University Department strategy and students’ wishes. Obiettivi formativi e qualifiche in un mercato del lavoro in evoluzione: il caso della formazione per insegnanti in Grecia (Patrasso) Il presente contributo ha per oggetto le competenze richieste agli insegnanti di scuola primaria, da sviluppare nel corso della loro formazione iniziale. L’approccio adottato nell’analisi dei learning outcomes fa riferimento a riflessioni riguardanti bisogni sociali, scelte di natura politica, strategie accademiche a livello dipartimentale, richieste dei soggetti in apprendimento. Il contributo intende presentare i risultati di una ricerca realizzata con studenti dell’ultimo anno del percorso di formazione iniziale all’Università di Patrasso (Grecia). Tale ricerca ha fatto uso di un questionario costruito sulla base delle competenze identificate nella ricerca Tuning (Area Education). I risultati conseguiti hanno messo in luce due aspetti: a) la permanenza della tradizione ed il potere della riproduzione; b) la difficoltà di mettere a punto e armonizzare bisogni sociali, scelte di carattere politico, strategie accademiche gestite a livello di dipartimenti, domande dei soggetti in apprendimento.