[MGSA-L] Reply to the Minister of Education

Αthena Αthanasiou athenaathanasiou at hotmail.com
Fri Sep 9 00:50:53 PDT 2011


 
... and here is the reply of the Initiative of Greek Academics to the Minister's e-mail message (both posted by supportgreekacademia)

http://supportgreekacademia.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/reply-to-the-minister%e2%80%99s-e-mail-message/

We were dismayed to witness the suspicious way in which the Minister of Education chose to respond to the petition "Defending Greek Academia", which has been endorsed by a remarkable part of the international academic community and has been by now recognized as an international action of safeguarding and further enhancing the very idea of the democratic, self-administered and unconditional university which should be a space of  "unconditional"  critique and research in Kantian terms.
 
In her letter, Ms. Diamantopoulou reduces the signatories of the petition - international academics of renowned commitment to academic freedom and critical thinking - to mere pawns who were naively deceived and misled by their Greek colleagues.  It also figures Greek academics as mere deceivers who are afraid of change and are guided by their own self-interests. This is a misrepresentation of both international and Greek academics, one which is akin to the typical rhetoric of this Minister and Government: all disagreement is pathologized as regressive fear for change, all critique is reduced and displaced to ulterior motifs and micropolitical self-interests.
This is not the occasion to reiterate that the object of the critique articulated by the academic community is not "change" as such, but rather the specific direction of this law. This is not the time to repudiate, once again, the semantic hijacking according to which the managerial subjugation of the university is miscalled "reform".  And this is not the occasion to unravel why this law undermines the free university and its fundamental commitment to democratic thinking, teaching and research.
 
Instead, we wish at this point to pose this question: How can the Minister seriously presume that the international intellectuals who have endorsed the petition and its cause have done so without a comprehensive knowledge of the facts? The facts, in this context, refer to the consequences of similar policies applied in other educational systems throughout the world. The Minister's letter manifests a demagogic deployment of the "international", its strategic uses and abuses. While the Minister constantly invokes "international experience" to legitimize her new legislation, when the "international experience" actually speaks through the signatures of prominent international academics, she rejects it. If the reform bill introduces international principles and standards, then these are already common knowledge at a global level, their lived effects being already exposed to critical thinking. Contesting the possibility of such a critique, on the grounds of linguistic specificity,!
  either signals that the principles and standards introduced by this bill are not truly the ones in place in the signatories' academic institutions, or that the idea of critical academic thinking is beyond the caliber of the Minister's logic, hovering as a threat to her political imagination.
 
Finally, the Minister requests that her letter be posted in the blog of "Defending Greek Academia". It is ironic, if not upsetting, that the Minister of monologue, the Minister who chose to disregard the academic community and its propositions, now feels free to make such a request.  We cannot and shall not follow her in this monologic manner, and we are posting her letter.  We request, however, that the petition with its signatures, as well as our response to her letter, be posted in the website of the Ministry of Education.
 
The Initiative of Greek Academics
 
 
 
 

> Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2011 21:09:33 -0400
> From: june.samaras at gmail.com
> To: mgsa-l at uci.edu
> CC: HELLAS-GREECE at googlegroups.com
> Subject: [MGSA-L] E-mail from the Minister of Education
> 
> E-mail from the Minister of Education
> 
> http://supportgreekacademia.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/e-mail-from-the-minister-of-education-lifelong-learning-and-religious-affairs/
> Posted on August 24, 2011 by supportgreekacademia
> 
> The Minister of Education, Lifelong Learning and Religious Affairs, Ms
> Anna Diamantopoulou posted a message to our e-mail address. Below you
> can read the Minister's e-mail message and the document attached to
> it. We kept the syntax and spelling as in the original message and
> document.
> 
> The Initiative of Greek Academics
> 
> -------------------------
> 
> Από: Minister of Education, Lifelong Learning and Religious Affairs
> <minister at minedu.gov.gr>
> Ημερομηνία: 22 Αυγούστου 2011 11:32 π.μ.
> Θέμα: Minister's Response to Foreign Academics
> Προς: europeanuniversitas1 at gmail.com
> 
> Ανέκαθεν η συζήτηση για τη μεταρρύθμιση στην Ανώτατη Εκπαίδευση
> προκαλούσε αντιπαράθεση και έντονο διάλογο. Στο πλαίσιο αυτό και
> προκειμένου να είναι όσο το δυνατόν καλύτερα ενημερωμένη η διεθνής
> κοινή γνώμη και όλοι οι ενδιαφερόμενοι του ζητήματος, εκτιμώ ότι δεν
> θα έχετε αντίρρηση να αναρτηθεί στο ιστολόγιο σας η παρακάτω απάντηση
> στο κείμενο συλλογής υπογραφών ξένων πανεπιστημιακών.
> 
> Ευχαριστώ εκ των προτέρων
> 
> ΑΝΝΑ ΔΙΑΜΑΝΤΟΠΟΥΛΟΥ
> Υπουργός Παιδείας, Δια Βίου Μάθησης και Θρησκευμάτων
> Ανδρέα Παπανδρέου 37
> 15180 Μαρούσι
> 
> T: 210 344 3505 - 10
> F: 210 344 2287
> E: minister at ypepth.gr
> 
> --------------------------------
> 
> Defending INDEED Higher Education in Greece
> 
> There is hardly anyone objecting to the core idea of defending and
> strengthening Higher Education in Greece especially at this critical
> juncture for the country's future. But as always, the devil hides in
> the details.
> 
> The expressed interest and concern of international academics for the
> fate of Higher Education in Greece is welcomed. However, it is quite
> regretful that the "supporting documents" with which non-greek
> speaking academics were informed and called to sign in agreement, are
> blatantly one-sided. They reflect opinions; they are simply editorial
> comments by a part of the greek academic community (leadership
> included) that strongly opposes this fundamental effort for reforming
> Higher Education in Greece. Nowhere in those documents and texts are
> facts and specific measures of the bill presented. Balanced
> information was nowhere to be found. Moreover, those documents simply
> distort reality as their authors, by making huge mental leaps, arrive
> at the gloomiest conclusions with no solid evidence whatsoever.
> Therefore, someone has to wonder how academics that by definition
> embed critical thinking and examination of facts, and not fiction,
> have unquestionably accepted and adopted those arguments and signed a
> call for withdrawing the proposed law. A law that will introduce in
> the country's higher education system fundamental principles such as
> those that already are in place in most of the academic institutions
> that the undersigned serve and prosper. Thus it is indeed surprising
> to declare that this direction "has proven devastating for Higher
> Education". In all fairness, however, it is not unexpected since the
> posted documents claim: "threats of closing down Universities without
> any strategic planning", the "introduction of tuition fees at the
> undergraduate level", or "fully surrendering administration without
> any counterweight to external actors", and present as a reality the
> "bypassing of the constitutional obligations of the State towards
> public universities" and the eminent transformation of "the University
> into a Corporation" as well as the abolishment of "the academic
> character"; all in all threatening the existence of education as a
> public good. All of the above reflect solely the authors' perceptions
> and simply do not exist, cannot be found (or even implied) anywhere in
> the proposed law. Actually, it is quite the contrary that the
> proposed bill aims to succeed.
> 
> Lastly, but not least, the new law whose basic direction has been in
> public consultation for over a year, instills true self governance
> (compatible with international standards), and allows for public
> funding to be directed to higher education institutions for the first
> time in a transparent and objective way. Thus, it ensures its outmost
> effective and efficient use for the benefit of students and greek
> society. And this is a duty that the greek government is committed to
> fulfill.
> 
> For further information please refer to:
> 
> 1. Public Deliberation in Greek Higher Education (in
> English) and the International Advisory Committee on Greek Higher
> Education Report:
> www.minedu.gov.gr/english/education/12-04-11-report-of-the-international-committee-on-higher-education-in-greece.html
> 
> 2. OECD Report, June 2011: Education Policy Advise for
> Greece. www.oecd.org/dataoecd/27/6/48407731.pdf
> 
> -- 
> June Samaras
> 2020 Old Station Rd
> Streetsville,Ontario
> Canada L5M 2V1
> Tel : 905-542-1877
> E-mail : june.samaras at gmail.com
> _______________________________________________
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