New Athens University rector vetoes ‘eternal’ students decision
The new rector at the University of Athens, Theodoros Fortsakis (photo), has announced his intention to veto the coalition government’s decision to implement legislation that allows universities to scrub from their registers the names of students who take longer than 11 years to complete courses that should run to a maximum of five years.
Speaking to Kathimerini Fortsakis said that the university was a self-administered institution and that the Education Ministry could not in its own right eradicate the names of students.
Fortsakis noted that the University of Athens would invite all of the institution’s 53,866 so-called “eternal” students to state whether they wished to earn a degree and, if so, be granted a two-year period to sit exams.
Meanwhile, Parliament on Tuesday approved a measure that will see “eternal” students being granted two examination periods in order to graduate.
In the case of the University of Athens, the amendment applied to about 4,500 enrolled students.
