Education minister unveils measures rolling back reforms
Education Minister Aristides Baltas on Thursday announced a series of measures that roll back recent reforms in the tertiary education sector, including scrapping limits to the number of years students can take to complete their university degrees.
According to the changes planned by Baltas, students will play a greater role in electing university officials. Apart from helping to elect the rector, they will also cast ballots for vice rectors and the weighting of their votes in the final result can rise as high as 70 percent, rather than the current limit of 40 percent.
Baltas also confirmed his intention to scrap university councils. The university councils, which include foreign academics and Greek academics from abroad, were formed as part of the tertiary education reform passed in 2011 with the aim of providing more independent oversight in the running of the institutions. Baltas thanked the academics who offered their services for free.
The reforms planned by the government also see students and university employees being given spots on the universities’ collective bodies, such as senates. The ministry said that this move would “restore democracy and strengthen the involvement of all members of the academic community in the decision-making process.”
