Parliament: The bill for the new operating framework of HEIs was voted in principle in the Committee on Educational Affairs

The Ministry of Education’s bill for New Horizons in Higher Education Institutions Strengthening the Quality of their functionality and connection with society was voted by majority, on its principle, by the Educational Affairs Committee of the Parliament.

Only the government majority voted in favor of the principle of the new legislative framework, while SYRIZA, KKE and MeRA25 voted against and PASOK-KINAL together with the Hellenic Solution reserved their place in the Plenary.

Earlier, the bill received both positive comments and strong disagreements from the non-parliamentary representatives who were invited to testify and came up with different approaches, opinions and proposals.

Mainly, a controversial point of the different approaches, opinions and proposals of the bodies is the Administration System of public universities and the new way of electing faculty members.

Particularly:

Periklis Mitkas, President of the National Authority of Higher Education, spoke in favor of the bill, as, as he said, “it offers many possibilities for the development and extroversion of Greek universities”, noting that several of the Authority’s proposals were accepted.

“The bill moves in the direction of developing and upgrading universities, strengthens self-government, gives them degrees of freedom and allows actions that until now were in the realm of utopia,” he said.

He also characterized, “an important challenge and a leap forward the internationalization of studies and the multitude of educational programs that will be carried out in collaboration with abroad”, noting at the same time that, “but there must also be controls that will ensure the services of the research project .

The representative of the Synod of Rectors, Evangelos Diamantopoulos, moved in the opposite direction, arguing that “the institutions of the academic community and university organizations were ignored from the dialogue, while very little of the proposals of the rectors have been taken into account”.

Mr. Diamantopoulos acknowledged, however, that there are several positive elements of the bill that address the constant demands of universities, such as strengthening their extroversion and the internationalization of studies.

He disagreed with the method of electing the chancellors, as it alters, as he said, the management boards, as well as with the assessment and examination regime for students, stressing that there is no provision for institutional counterweights.

“The rector as president will be both controlling and being controlled. The role of the Senate is being completely undermined,” he said, among other things.

In support of the bill, Orestis Kalogirou, President of the Interdisciplinary Organization for the Recognition of Study Titles, appeared, emphasizing that “huge bureaucratic problems and unacceptable delays produced by the previous law are being solved”.

“Clearly, the provisions of the bill are in a positive direction. The strengthening of the extroversion of Greek universities and the internationalization of studies is a big cut for Greek students who studied abroad, while it is absolutely certain that the profit will be great, from quick completion of the process of recognition of study titles and the repatriation of the “brain name” of the country”, he underlined.

Ioannis Nematoudis, President of the Panhellenic Federation, asserted that, “there is a universal reaction of the academic community to the bill for which no consultation took place”, while he requested “that the Ministry of Education initiate an honest dialogue with all agencies, so that a new framework that will garner maximum consensus”.

At the same time, he stated his strong disagreement with the election of faculty members and the appointment of Vice-Chancellors and Deans, arguing that there is a risk of it leading to confusion and suggested that the current system remain.

“Clearly there are positive regulations, such as those concerning postgraduate degrees, however the bill does not address two critical issues. The underfunding and understaffing of universities,” he added.

The General Secretary of the Federation of Persons with Disabilities, Vassilis Kotsialos, expressed his positive view of the bill, stressing that many of the Federation’s proposals and observations have been incorporated, while he requested some technical improvements regarding the equal treatment and access of disabled persons to Higher Education.

Emmanuel Pleionis, president of the National Observatory and Convenor of the Synod of Research Centers, spoke about many positive provisions, but also the need for corrective additions.

On the part of the Church of Greece and the Ecumenical Patriarchate, all their representatives, without exception, expressed their absolute satisfaction with the arrangements that concern them and which, as they said, are the result of their cooperation with the Ministry of Education.

The representative of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Metropolitan of Smyrna, Bartholomeos, the representative of the Church of Greece, Metropolitan of Thessaly and Farsalon, Timotheus, the Legal Counselor of the Church of Crete, Dimitrios Malathianakis, and Father Georgios Selis, president of Holy Association of Clergy of Greece.

As everyone pointed out, “a perennial problem with organic positions that has been pending for 77 years is being solved.”

“There was this inconsistency with the 10,744 clerical positions appointed by the state and it had to be resolved. And the rhetoric that the state covers all the needs of the church is divisive. The Greek state paid the clergy for 77 years, therefore the bill does not introduce anything new. The institutionalization of the organic positions does not bring a single euro of burden to the state budget”, they emphasized among others.

The Vice-President of the Panhellenic Federation of Associations of Specialist and Laboratory Teaching Staff of HEIs, Eleni Loutrari, spoke of the strong objections of the Federation and accused the Ministry of Education of “neither having a meaningful dialogue nor embracing the reservations and proposals submitted for their daily working life”. .

As he argued, the research work of the employees is being downgraded, while he stated that their main request is to include in the new framework, the recognition of the work of the doctoral theses members.

Stefanos Karvelis, president of the Panhellenic Federation of Special Technical Laboratories, emphasized, among other things, the need to recognize their professional work for the development of the sector and to make the description of the knowledge object clearer.

Despina Dimitriadou, president of the Federation of Associations of Special Educational Personnel, argued that no substantial consultation took place, while stating that with the new framework the public university and its sustainability are deregulated and at the same time the accountability of public bodies is absent.

“We have been included and correctly, in positive regulations, however we are excluded from all electoral procedures, while we are forgotten regarding the possibility of parallel employment and our development”, he said.

At the same time, he emphasized humanitarian studies, which he said, while they should be of the highest priority, are not linked to any development strategy and are not linked to the market and added that “a spirit of private enterprise of universities is being formed”.

Ioannis Klapsopoulos, Vice-President of the Association of Greek Academic Libraries, focused on the lack of staff and infrastructure, spoke of a European and global reversal of their current form of operation while asking for minor corrections to be made and the current legislation to remain in place.

Michael Paterakis, representative of EPI, a professor at the University of Crete, expressed his disagreement with the bill which contradicts, as he said, the principle of proportionality and the development perspective of Research University Institutes.

At the same time, he argued that the proposals of the Research University Institutes have not been included and that there are provisions that will create obstacles for them in their mission.

He also proposed to provide for an explicit mention that they belong to the single field of research, so as not to create, as he said, two-speed research bodies.

However, he acknowledged that there are provisions with a positive sign.

Niki Chronopoulou, president of the Federation of Administrative Staff of Higher Education, expressed her “radical and vertical disagreement with the sweeping bill that distances universities from the needs of students, does not respond to the real chronic pathologies of their understaffing and legislates the flexibility of labor relations” .

“It establishes an anti-democratic model of administration by people from the market who will have a decisive role while the Senate is limited to academic matters and indeed only with an advisory role,” he added.

Nikolaos Papaioannou, rector of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, expressing his personal opinion, as he said, acknowledged that the bill moves in the right direction for the restructuring of the universities, noting that under no circumstances should the uninterrupted continuation of the administration of the HEIs be disrupted.

Christos Dordas, President of the Agricultural Department of AUTH, requested “the withdrawal of the provision that abolishes the autonomous operation of the farm that has been granted for 86 years to AUTH and has a decisive role in the research work of the students while not burdening the state budget”.

“The current legal status of our university farm must remain, its autonomy must remain so that our work can continue uninterrupted,” he stressed.

Source: AMPE