The Chronicle: Controversial Higher-Education Reforms Spark Riots in Athens
The Greek Parliament passed a controversial education bill this month that sparked rioting in the streets of Athens. Police said it was the worst unrest the city had seen for years. At least 20 people were injured, 47 were detained, and 11 were arrested, the Associated Press reported.
The protesters, whose number was estimated at 15,000, included students, professors, and members of labor unions opposed to the conservative government’s higher-education proposals. They began gathering in central Athens on the afternoon of the vote, on March 8.
The government’s education package includes measures that would limit the number of years students can take to complete a university degree and would curtail university asylum laws, which make it virtually impossible for the police to enter campuses. A separate proposal to alter the Constitution and allow the operation of private universities in Greece has also mobilized opponents, who believe the changes foreshadow a privatization of higher education and higher costs for students.
In a speech marking his government’s third anniversary in office, on the eve of the vote, Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis said the higher-education legislation “effectively safeguards the academic asylum and ensures the free dissemination of ideas, which today is being violated by the uncontrolled violence.”
Also on the eve of the vote in Parliament, the main faculty union, the Panhellenic Federation of University Teachers’ Associations, vowed to continue its opposition to the government’s proposals, regardless of the result of the ballot.
Since Mr. Karamanlis’s governing New Democracy Party proposed the legislation last year, protests have hampered the operations of universities across Greece, and opposition demonstrations and marches have become a regular occurrence.
The opposition socialist party had originally supported the government’s higher-education agenda but in recent weeks had withdrawn its support and, along with two other opposition parties, refused to take part in the vote.
Faculty Support
The government nonetheless won passage of the bill, by a tally of 164 to 117. As news of the result emerged, protesters in Syntagma Square, just outside of the Parliament Building, erupted in anger.
Despite the spasm of violence, some academics and students expect that the finality of the vote will mean that Greece’s beleaguered higher-education sector can now focus on the future.
“Not everybody is very happy about the law, and it’s not that it is something that solves problems entirely, but at least it’s a step forward,” said Nancy Papalexandris, vice rector for academic affairs at Athens University of Economics and Business. “The majority feel that the government is right in what it is trying to do, and that they should proceed.”
Even the opposition of the main faculty union is not necessarily an impediment to progress, she said. The union does not represent the views of most professors, she said, and is dominated by extremist activists.
Ms. Papalexandris, whose institution has been effectively closed by protests for the past month and half, said Greek universities should now be able to resume something approaching normalcy.
Students on the far left of the political spectrum have said they would continue to oppose the government’s education package, but Andreas Katopodis, a student at the University of Patras who supports the government reforms, said most students seem to want nothing more than to resume their studies uninterrupted.
The protests and unrest have cost some students nearly a year of study, and most have tired of the disruption, Mr. Katopodis said.
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