Wave of Reforms Causes Chaos In Greek Universities - Greek Reporter, 30 août 2011

The situation at Universities and Technological Institutes of the country continues to be chaotic as a result of the new education bill passed by consensus in Parliament.

Group of students belonging to the Communist Party have blocked the entrance to the building of the University of Athens rectorate. They intend to do the same to the Technological Institutes of Athens and Piraeus, and the Research Centre. Similar protests will take place in other universities in Athens and other cities around Greece. Students are protesting against the new education law on universities and colleges.

University Occupations From Thessaloniki to Crete

At the same time, Panteion University is occupied by students and general meetings take place at all universities. According to data, the Technical University of Crete is under occupation and September’s exam period in the University of Patras was postponed so that general assemblies of students would take place. Under occupation are schools of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH), where the Senate refused to postpone the examination period, an issue whilch will be probably re-examined in tomorrow’s meeting. From 7.00 in the morning, students-members of the KKE party occupied the building of the Research Committee of AUTH, where they hung banners and shouted slogans against the participation of enterprises in research programs of the university, but also protested against the new bill.

Rallies and Summits

KKE students are planning a rally on Thursday, September 1, at 7.30 starting from the statue of Venizelos and symbolic occupations in other buildings of AUTH and invite all students to participate in general meetings of the Schools, to be held today and tomorrow so as to determine long-term mobilisations in the university.

Within the next days, the senates of other universities such as Athens and Patras are expected to have a series of meetings, in order to examine the situation and decide their next moves. On Friday, an extraordinary summit of Rectors will take place at the Technological Park of The Technical University of Athens (Metsovio) in Layrio.

On Monday 29th, exams at the University of Patras were normally held, but it was decided to stop them for one day so that the general meetings of students take place.