Assessment of Students’ Familiarity, Adoption, and Use of Social Media in Bahrain.

Social media is used in many higher education institutions for educational purposes in numerous new and innovative ways. However, in Bahrain the number of higher education students who are aware of and use social media is not clear. It was therefore necessary to conduct an empirical study that would investigate the students’ use of social media in higher education in Bahrain. Moreover, the actual adoption of social media in everyday learning situations still remain underexplored, especially in higher education settings. This paper describes a study conducted to investigate the influence of social media use by student in Bahrain. The aims of this study are to assess students’ level of familiarity, engagement and frequency of use with social media. The data was collected using two questionnaires. The findings indicate that social media has introduce a new culture of learning among students. In addition, social media applications which are on the increase in usage by students for activities that include studying, access of education content, social communication

Economic crisis and higher education in Greece

It can be argued that higher education (HE) in Greece has always been problematic and dysfunctional in the post-dictatorship era (1974-2008). This is evident from the fact that Greek governments have failed to reform HE according to the EU standards despite the public demand and industry needs. Additionally the existence of a large number of state universities and technological institutes (TEIs) in combination with the phenomena of: nepotism, favouritism, trade unionism, political involvement, and the creation of unnecessary departments in rural areas in order to satisfy the local voters support this argument. This chapter describes the current situation of HE in Greece. It discusses the challenges that staff, students and the government face from the impact of the economic crisis. In addition, it provides an overview of the effects of the changes in HE on the society. Finally, it explores the prospects and opportunities that exist for HE policy makers, staff and students; especially in terms of their future employability