The Metropolitan College of Athens, owned by BC Partners, is facing legal action, as parents dispatched legal notices to the private educational institution, alleging the degrees granted were not recognized in the job market, according to a report aired on “One TV”.
“It’s like they haven’t studied anything,” say parents with despair and anger who have paid substantial amounts for their children’s education.
As the report says, the College, which was acquired in April by BC Partners headed by Nikos Stathopoulos, for 250 million euros, offered diplomas in the nursing profession that had no value in the market.
One TV, journalist Vangelis Triantis of datajournalists, who shed light on the matter, explained, “It was a department that had a four-year program in collaboration with a university in the UK, from which you could supposedly practice the nursing profession.”
Students paid tuition fees of around 15-20,000 € to receive diplomas which were not recognized in Greece or the EU based on the presidential decree of 2010, as the report says.
However, this information is not available on the Metropolitan College website, where it is emphasized that “graduates of the Nursing Department have all the necessary qualifications to evolve and pursue careers in the health care fields.
“There are complaints about ‘ghost’ departments, ‘ghost’ students so that some owners receive funding from the European Union. There is no control by the Ministry of Education,” said the President of the Federation of Private Education in Greece (OIELE) George Christopoulos.
As reported, “Metropolitan College is one of the most well-known private educational institutions in our country, with over 40 years of operation and tens of thousands of graduates. It operates with an official license from the Ministry of Education and Religion, while as stated on its website, it is ‘the largest and most complete College in Greece with 12 Schools and more than 70 bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral programs offered at state-of-the-art campuses at 8 locations in our country (Athens center, Marousi, Piraeus, Thessaloniki, Larissa, Heraklion Crete, Rhodes, and Patras).'”
Last April, Metropolitan College and IEK Akmi were acquired by BC Partners through BC Partners GR Investment. BC Partners is a company providing consulting and investment services to investment funds and belongs to the BC Partners Holdings Limited group, which is active in Greece in several sectors of the economy.
The cost of acquiring 85% – 90% of Metropolitan College amounted to about 250 million euros. Some linked the acquisition with PM Mitsotakis’ announcements about the operation of private universities in Greece. Over the past 16 years, BC Partners has implemented investments of over 6 billion euros in Greece, including investments in Pharmathen, Pet City, Wind, and Nova.
