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New Bill Could Put 'Last Nail in the Coffin' for Greek Universities

απθHigher education in Greece has always been the plaything of education ministers who tried to put their mark in history by passing bills that would later carry their name. The bills, of course, were never for improving the level of education, but to promote the political obsessions of the individuals in the high chair of the ministry.
The SYRIZA  education ministry is no exception. This month, the education minister is a journalist and the deputy minister is an academic. They both come from the left, thereby their idea on improving higher education is to “bring more democracy to universities.” Their idea of more democracy is to have students participate in electing deans and give student councils more power. Overall, it sounds good. In practice, it is a disaster, as experience shows.
When a 1982 law gave more powers to university students and student councils, universities soon became recruitment centers for potential voters. University students became the perfect candidates to join political parties. Campuses often turned to battlegrounds between party youths. Education took the back seat and the important issues were mainly political. Political obsessions never allowed universities to be connected with the job market. “Good” professors and deans were those who were giving out degrees to fellow party members. Student mafias still blackmail professors and deans to pass courses and get degrees.
Some Greek universities became dens of corruption and crime. The lax education laws allowed the existence and perpetuation of the uniquely Greek species of the “eternal student.” Right now there are 180,000 eternal students, who were registered at some point and are still considered students, with all the rights and privileges allowed to students.
During the New Democracy-PASOK coalition government, a bill had passed that all eternal students who would not take exams in due time, would be erased from the student registers. However, the SYRIZA government repealed the bill in May. Apparently, the eternal students are useful to the current government.
The famous “university asylum” concept helped in maintaining delinquency and crime inside university buildings. Drug deals or the movement of contraband goods are a common phenomenon in campuses. During a recent Athens University sit-in, police arrested seven foreign drug dealers. Every time police chases away contraband sellers, they find shelter in university campuses. Computers and supplies are consistently plundered.
skoypiAt the same time, students are somehow given the “freedom” to verbally abuse or even beat up professors who express different ideas than theirs. Only this month, a group of students pelted eggs and fruits at a group of foreign university professors who went to evaluate certain universities and blocked them from entering. Needless to say, the evaluations were never made. In November 2014, a student emptied a trash bag on the desk of the deputy dean of the Athens University protesting the lack of cleanliness on the campus. As if vicious outsiders like to go into university buildings and throw garbage.
Education Minister Nikos Filis and Deputy Sia Anagnostopoulou believe there is not enough democracy in Greek universities and they want to give more power to the students. Anagnostopoulou recently stated that, “without SYRIZA, universities would collapse”. She believes that more democracy will help rid of the plights of Greek universities. Whatever that means.
The word “democracy” has been abused so much in Greece in recent years that it is ready to jump out of the Greek dictionary and run away.

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