[MGSA-L] Students caught up in power games at Greece’s unruly universities

June Samaras june.samaras at gmail.com
Sun Jul 13 20:22:07 PDT 2014


Students caught up in power games at Greece’s unruly universities

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July 13, 2014 6:56 pm
Students caught up in power games at Greece’s unruly universities
By Kerin Hope in Athens



Alexandros, a final-year student, was dejectedly sipping an iced cappuccino
at a café close to the downtown campus of Athens polytechnic, where
anarchists mingle with undergraduates.

Just as his examinations were due to start, a strike by administrative
workers – with the support of many leftwing students and professors – had
shut the polytechnic for two weeks. That, in turn, threatens the
24-year-old electrical engineer’s chances of embarking on a graduate course
in the UK in October.

“I stayed out of politics and worked hard to get abroad – and now this
happens,” said Alexandros, who did not want to give his second name. “Exams
have been postponed until August because of the strike, if they happen at
all, and I could lose my place at London university.”

The strike – in protest against the planned sacking of 550 administrators –
was the latest disruption to Greece’s often unruly higher education sector.
Although the 35 state universities in Greece are free, they have long
suffered from poor funding and political rivalries that have hurt teaching
standards, held back research and fostered a climate of intimidation and
violence.

Clashes between students affiliated to the main parties and far-left fringe
groups are a regular occurrence; professors are routinely intimidated into
giving pass grades to student activists; and vandalism and thefts of PCs
and laptops from university premises are rampant, say faculty members –
some of whom have left in recent years to work abroad.

“We have talented students but they face real problems learning in such a
difficult environment,” says Aristides Hatzis, a law professor at Athens
university.
The most recent strife stems from Greece’s bailout by the EU and the
International Monetary Fund, which imposed job cuts across the bloated
public sector. A three-month walkout by university administrators last year
resulted in dozens of courses being suspended after 1,150 non-academic
staff members were transferred to a “mobility reserve” on 75 per cent of
their salary.
The protests resumed following a cabinet reshuffle this month. Andreas
Loverdos, the new education minister who is critical of the bailout
programme, has already agreed to rehire 600 administrators.

That is not enough for Maria Xiroyianni, a UK-trained librarian at Athens
polytechnic. “They should all be rehired. We need more – not fewer –
university administrators. We don’t have a permanent security staff for
example, or nearly enough laboratory technicians,” says Ms Xiroyianni, who
participated in the strike.
The walkout was ultimately suspended after a prosecutor intervened but
students from the youth wing of the far-left Syriza party, which came first
in last month’s European elections, are calling for it to resume in October
when the new academic year starts.

That points to a deeper problem for Greek universities: their intense
politicisation. Until recently, students of every stripe – from
conservatives to anarchists – enjoyed special status derived from their
perceived role in the fall of Greece’s 1967-74 military junta, which was
fatally weakened by a student rebellion at Athens polytechnic in 1973.

Soon after Greece’s first socialist government came to power in 1981 it
gave students the right to vote in elections of university chancellors and
department heads, as well as seats on university administrative committees.
The socialists also reinforced an existing regulation making it illegal for
police and security forces to enter campuses.

Thanos Veremis, emeritus professor of political history at Athens
university, says leftwing activist students have in effect controlled the
universities ever since.
“The student vote determined the outcome of the election of senior
university officials. Blackmail and collusion [between students and faculty
members] became part of the process,” said Prof Veremis, who oversaw a
failed attempt to reform higher education a decade ago.

Reform efforts still run aground, even after parliament overwhelmingly
approved a 2011 law to bring Greek universities in line with their EU peers
by enforcing regular staff evaluations, audits of department accounts and
accountability for professors accused of mismanagement.

The institution of “university asylum” that banned police from campus was
abolished, yet many university officials are still reluctant to call in the
police to break up violent demonstrations or to investigate thefts of
university property.

Little progress has been made on ejecting “perpetual students” who
sometimes remain registered on the university books for decades while
rarely attending classes or taking exams, even though the law now sets a
10-year deadline for obtaining a first degree.

Yet the student politicians’ power over their professors will gradually
weaken following the loss of their voting rights under the 2011 law. For
the first time, all the universities will be obliged this year to elect new
chancellors through a vote restricted to academic staff.

“Tighter oversight of higher education is finally on the way,” Prof.
Veremis says.
For Lydia Tsioli, a final-year law student who was offered graduate school
places this year at Cambridge, New York University and the University of
Chicago, the changes are too late. Last year’s strike by administrators
forced the Athens university law school to cancel its entire first term.

“I’m taking some exams now but I can’t graduate till next February and that
means I lose a whole year, “Ms Tsioli says. She is hoping to defer her
place until 2015 and, in the meantime, find an internship “probably outside
Greece”.
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