By a majority voted on the Authority, the draft law of the Ministry of Education on «Admission to higher education, protection of academic freedom, upgrading of the academic environment and other provisions» at the beginning of the third session of the Committee on Cultural Affairs of the Parliament. In favour of the draft law was the NW, voted against SYRIZA, KINAL, KKE and MERA 25 while Greek Solution was reserved for the plenary. The second reading of the draft law will take place in committee next Friday morning.
The Minister for Education Niki Kerameos, at the conclusion of the majority vote on the articles of the draft law, stressed that «only creativity, thinking, love of learning, love of life itself should flourish at the University, and this is the duty of all of us and the three hundred Members of Parliament towards our children.».
Regarding the criticisms about the creation of a security team for universities, the minister stressed that «we cannot consider normal what is happening today in the institutions. We cannot tell our children that this situation, even if it is an exception - and we stress this, we do not have a problem of delinquency in all the universities in the country - that it is normal. We have a great debt and responsibility each and every one of us has towards the younger generation. Lawlessness, violence, inhuman behaviour, we must all together eliminate it from the University, once and for all».
The Minister of Education, Niki Kerameos, rejected the proposal of Kinal for the special guarding body of the universities, claiming that what you are telling us is «recruitment, to do what is already done today and has failed» and added that the proposal of Kinal says «the training (of this body) to be done by the Ministry of Citizen Protection. But what business does the Ministry of Citizen Protection have if these new employees have nothing to do with the Police.».
Responding to the opposition MPs, the Minister made a series of remarks and comments.
Specifically, on the finances of higher education, he said that the percentage of public spending of GDP for the university is higher than the European average. The 2021 Budget has an increase of 142.000.000 euros while the ESPA we have managed to include an extra €90 million of projects compared to the previous government. In terms of staff posts, 550 faculty and 120 administrative posts were allocated a few months ago. Two thousand teaching posts, in the midst of pandemic. He stressed that just because quality criteria are set for the institutions, this does not mean that their funding will be reduced. We have excellent universities. We have excellent human resources. But we must rationalise the situation. Let's get away from the framework that SYRIZA had, under which each minister arbitrarily decided what money to give to each university.
On «perpetual students», Mrs Kerameos agreed that «it is a wealth to get a degree» but not after 20, 30, 40 years, this is not the message we want to pass on. In every educational process there is a beginning, a middle and an end.
On vocational education, he said that it is «shocking» the effort to devalue it and asked SYRIZA to say directly whether it considers vocational education and training inferior. We, he stressed, we say unequivocally that there are alternative paths to education outside the universities. In Greece we have only 30% of our students following the vocational education path, while in other countries, this percentage is 50%, 60%, even 70%. He underlined that the alternative to the University is not only, as the opposition presents it, private colleges, but also public IEKs.
On the minimum admission base, he pointed out to the opposition that even Syriza voters, by 52%, are in favour of the admission base. Also, the Rectors« Conference is also in favour. Regarding the way of selection of schools by the candidates in the Panhellenic, Niki Kerameos said that it is not, as it is said, about any institutionalization of »Russian roulette" but in no other country's system, there is such an unlimited number of 200 to 250 choices.
On the issues of dealing with violence and lawlessness, the minister said that even 60.4% of Syriza voters are in favour of controlled entry.
On security systems in universities and the opinion of the Personal Data Protection Authority, he said that not only were we consulted but this had been submitted with the bill. In fact , he added that from the Authority , we asked for comments on the entire bill but it chose and responded with comments only on a specific article . Obviously, she had no other comments to raise.
Specifically for the University Protection Group, the minister said that 63.5% are in favour in society, while among the voters of SY.RIZ.A. 38% are in favour. We are discussing, the Minister said, the obvious, namely whether the Public Order Organs should be able to intervene in public universities, just as they do in any public place. The minister also criticized in high tones the reports of opposition MPs that «we will do everything possible to prevent the law from being implemented and shredded» saying that we all have taken an oath of obedience to the Constitution and the laws, really, what are you pushing for a law of the Greek Parliament not to be respected if it is passed? Is this the example you are setting as members of the Greek Parliament? Is this the example you are sending to society?;
