National Technical University of Athens

[EduCativ]

The National Technical University of Athens is structured according to the continental European system for training engineers, emphasizing solid background. After the acquisition of 300 credit units to a Diploma, the duration of courses leading, of Master's level, is five years. The valuable work of NTUA and its international reputation is due to its well-organized educational and research system, the quality of its staff and students, and the adequacy of its technical infrastructure. NTUA graduates were pivotal to Greece's pre-war development and post-war reconstruction. The graduate engineers who staffed public and private technical services and companies remained by general consent, equal to their European counterparts. Many have been elected to distinguished teaching and research positions in well-known universities all over the world.
Under Article 16 of the Greek Constitution and consequent laws, and following its tradition and structure, the primary institutional component of the NTUA's mission, effected through the integrated complex of studies and research, provides advanced higher education of outstanding quality in science and technology.
The apparent need for any significant institute of higher education to operate and offer education and research opportunities within a well organized and completely unambiguous internal system of principles, aims, procedures, rights, and obligations, led, between the years 1997 and 2000, to the in-depth internal and external evaluation of the NTUA's structure and activities and consequently to the drawing up, discussion with all NTUA's members and approval by the Senate and the Ministry of Education, (Government Gazette 1098/B/05.09.2000), of the NTUA Statute. This code of operation and development, considered as one of the best European University Statutes, defines that the primary strategy of NTUA in the new millennium is not only to maintain its position as an outstanding and internationally recognized public university of science and technology but also to strengthen that position as regarding all its basic operations. All other strategies, aims and actions must be compatible with this important strategic choice.
Founded in 1837, almost along with the modern Greek state, NTUA is the oldest Technical University in Greece.
The school quickly introduced reforms to make it better able to respond to the domestic needs of reconstruction and industrial development. Studies reached the three years, enriched with new disciplines, and the administration was taken over by the Committee for the Encouragement of National Industry.
It was named "Metsovion" to honor the donors and benefactors Nikolaos Stournaris, Eleni Tositsa, Michail Tositsas, and Georgios Averof from Metsovo, a small town in the region of Epirus.
After the introduction of a four-year degree course for civil and mechanical engineering, in 1887, the NTUA was able to announce that it "educates high-level engineers for the public service, industry, and construction" as competent as "graduates from the well–known engineering schools of Western Europe". The last major reform of the organization and administration of NTUA took place in 1917. The "Ethnicon M emotion Politechnion" acquired five high-level engineering schools: Civil, Mechanical & Electrical, Architecture, Chemical, and Surveying. Many subsequent changes since 1917 have led to its current form: a prestigious University of Science and Technology, with eight Engineering Schools and a ninth School of Applied Mathematical and Physical Sciences.
The recent struggles against the military dictatorship of 1967-74 escalated with the student gathering at the NTUA Patission Campus on February the 14th, 1973, followed by an unprecedented brutal attack by the police inside the campus and the arrest of several students. These few days saw the growth of an impressive popular uprising centered at NTUA. The people of Greece and the country's youth all rallied in support of the students, united around the ideals: Freedom, Democracy, Independence, Education, and Social Progress. The toll of the Polytechnic uprising was tragic. Several demonstrators were killed, many more were arrested by the military police and were tortured for months in military prisons.
The Junta fell a few months later, and Polytechnic is being commemorated every year on November the 17th by the students, high school pupils, the NTUA Senate, the democratic authorities, political parties, the Greek Parliament, and the people of Greece.
The Polytechnic Uprising is an outstanding event in recent Greek history. NTUA honored the Uprising victims with a monument within its courtyard, opposite the gate which the tanks of the dictatorship demolished that night. The monument was placed alongside the column commemorating the National Resistance. The two memorials emphasize the continued struggle of the Greek people and the country's youth over the years.

View full university