Professional education in the arts and cultural management is still governed by traditional structures in Greece. There are several academic departments of theatre studies, art history, archaeology, anthropology, cultural and media studies.
Artistic education in the fine arts is integrated within official tertiary education, mainly through the Athens School of Fine Arts and the Fine Arts Department of the University of Thessaloniki. On the other hand, the main pillar of creative artistic education in music consists of a system of privately run conservatories and independent teachers, which is only nominally regulated by the Ministry and Culture. Drama education is provided by the National Theatre in Athens, and the State Theatre of Northern Greece in Thessaloniki, as well as by many privately run theatre schools. The State School of Dance, operating under the Ministry of Culture and Culture, is an institution aiming to create well-rounded and technically trained dancers, choreographers and dance teachers.
A Department of Film Studies was introduced inside the Faculty of Fine Arts of Thessaloniki and is operating since the academic year 2004-2005, while private schools traditionally providing film training (like the Stavrakos Film School) are not offered any official certification since 2004.
Only a handful of specialised academic programmes for culture professionals are currently offered: undergraduate and postgraduate courses in cultural management in Panteion University, museum studies postgraduate programmes in the Universities of Athens and Thessaloniki, postgraduate programmes in digital media arts in the Athens School of Fine Arts and in the University of the Aegean, and an undergraduate programme in cultural communication and technology in the University of the Aegean. According to Eurostat (2004-2005), tertiary education students by field of education related to culture represent 1.7% of all tertiary education students (63 830 students (9.9%) in Humanities, 10 942 students (17%) in Arts, 7 890 students (35%) in Journalism and Communication and 22 396 students (3.5%) in Architecture and Buildings).
Universities are asked to prepare plans for harmonisation with the Bologna process under a new Higher Education Law passed in Parliament in summer 2007.
Music high schools are supervised by the Ministry of Education, while education in music conservatories still lies under the Ministry of Culture and Tourism; current wisdom is to maintain, and perhaps strengthen, the regulatory role of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism over music conservatories and in general over professional education in the arts.
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