They turned it into a political issue FOREVERthe problem that arose with the impossibility of electing external members to the boards of three universities –Thessaly, Aegean Sea and Macedonia– out of ten universities that have recently organized elections. This impossibility is essentially the result of the disagreement of candidates for rectors to elect external members. The Ministry of Education, by the circular of the responsible general secretary of higher education, Odysseus Zora, dated November 21, 2022, gave instructions to the institutions, but the management of the three institutions considers them insufficient and does not want to implement them. Background processes are intense and, accordingly, with deans grades in “K”, there is an intention that the unresolved issue will be decided not by the current government, but by the next one. The background is ambiguous, given that the decision to be qualified will affect the election of the rector in large and iconic universities such as EKPA, NTUA and AUTH. At a recent meeting of rectors, the Minister of Education Niki Kerameos he spoke of an internal matter, recommending that dean candidates agree. Answer how told the rector “K” yesterday, is summarized in the following commentary: “The nomination of a candidate for the position of rector by a university student is a political act. So why should one chancellor candidate back down in favor of another? By analogy, why didn’t Mrs. Kerameos coordinate the educational policy with Mr. Konstantinos Gavroglu when she was in opposition in 2018, and the latter was in the post of minister?”

Ties

In particular, the issue arose due to the equality of votes in the election of external council members in 3 universities. What happened;

– The new law 4957/2022 stipulates that the new 11-member university councils consist of 6 internal members (elected by the university member universities) and 5 external ones (elected by 6 internal members). Rector, one internal member (out of 6) is elected by a vote of 11 members.

– If the 4 inside members are swimming in a team, they can choose 2 friendly members from the 5 outside members. Moreover, there were supposedly nominations of external members at the invitation of ambitious internal members. Then 6 groups, having a majority of the 11 members of the Council, can elect a rector.

– During the pre-election period, there was information that groups of five university candidates were created at the university, which rallied around one (let’s say A) who wanted to be elected rector, and how the group appeared – informally, of course – in the election body. In other words, they said: “Vote for all six to get a majority in the council, and then we will elect … And the rector.”

– However, in 3 universities there was no clear majority among the 6 internal members. Thus, 5 external members cannot be elected and the process is stuck.

“Fruitless” process

When this became known to the Ministry of Education, a circular was sent to the universities, which, in part, stated the following: “If at the first meeting of internal members, the process is repeated to fill open positions on the next business day. If it is still not possible to fill all the seats, the vote is repeated as many times as required until the required majority is reached. If the required majority is not reached, none of the remaining candidates is deemed to have the credibility required to sit on the VO board, so the process becomes fruitless and the process will have to be carried out from the beginning.” And the circular adds that “the decision of the Senate of the university determines the maximum number of times that a vote can be repeated before it is declared void.”

Today, three universities state that they cannot act on the basis of the circular by raising objections. For example, “it’s impossible to disapprove of people who ran for external membership” the head of the university told K yesterday.. On the other hand, it is thus considered that time may still drag on before the announcement of national elections.

And the university federation POSDEP (with right-wing leadership) has criticized the Kerameo law, giving this particular participation a political dimension.

Complaint of rape

Student associations neighboring KNE condemned yesterday the attack by a group calling itself “ARAS”. The incident took place at the EKPA School of Positive Sciences. “The bandit mobile group of this group banditically beat students, trade unionists, including the presidents of the Student Associations of Physicists and Mathematicians of Athens, Demos Kostas and Pantelaros Giannis, with helmets and bone gloves. We condemn this gang attack and this practice, which has nothing to do with our students and clubs,” the statement said. The complained group is said to belong to the extra-parliamentary left, while the reasons for the attack and whether it is a new episode in the dispute between student associations have not been clarified.