I wrote from 05.02.2022 to “K” about the methods used in universities to manipulate the election of teachers. I spoke, among other things, about the methods used to formulate the topic of the advertised position, the formation of the electoral body and the reporting commission, as well as methods to strengthen the profile of the favorite candidate and reduce the profile of his opponents. Many of these elements, as I wrote at the time, I gleaned, in addition to my general experience, from the troubled choices that took place in my faculty at the University of Athens. I filed two memos on this case, one to the university and one to the Department of Education, and in the text I said, “I expect the review they will conduct will restore academic order.”

Therefore, I am writing today to report that the Ministry of Education with its administrative services and the minister have indeed fulfilled their oversight role and restored academic order by returning these elections to the department where the violations were found. This impeachment has, I believe, a special and more general significance, because I was not a candidate in this election, nor a member of the representation committee, nor even a member of the electoral body. I didn’t know any of the candidates. I was an ordinary member of the meeting of the section in which the elections were held. I prepared and submitted a memorandum with violations, taking into account the protection of legality, academic ethics, the interests of the faculty and the university and the public interest in general, because fair elections, in addition to respecting the right of candidates to equal treatment, attract the best to the university, and this helps both the institute and and students, as well as the country.

The fact that the Ministry accepted my arguments means that henceforth, if teachers find violations and illegal actions, they can contact the Ministry and request a legality check with reasonable hopes of being heard, given the precedent for this particular appeal. This possibility is very important, as it will act, I believe, as a deterrent for those who use the methods we have mentioned, because these actions will now have a cost, as for the one who is elected preferentially, since his election will be canceled , and for the department itself with a delay in its staffing. It is enough for the ministry to continue to exercise its oversight powers and listen to the legitimate objections of faculty concerned with legitimacy and meritocracy.

Unfortunately, universities cannot play this role even if they are responsible for conducting the first legitimacy check due to the many interdependencies between faculty and administration. Various measures are applied in the work of administrative services, as a result of which administrations often turn a blind eye to reports of violations. In the case of my own memorandum, the University of Athens escaped legal scrutiny by missing the deadline. And when the ministry asked for a dossier on the elections for verification, the rector hurried the very next day to nominate a candidate elected in a problematic election, to which he was entitled. Had the university played its supervisory role in time, the costs for both applicants and faculty would have been lower.

Since May, when I wrote the text in “K”, I have received and continue to receive messages from candidates and parents unknown to me, but, above all, from colleagues about problematic elections. The phenomena of nepotism, favoritism and nepotism are widespread in Greek universities. In the absence of any other oversight, the exercise of oversight by the Ministry of Education is welcome, even if it may be limited to formal violations of the law. There will be significant oversight of the staffing of educational institutions, which should be carried out by the universities themselves. However, as long as the administration and teachers are in a relationship of interdependence, this is out of the question.

* Ms. Vaso Kinti is Professor of Philosophy at EKPA.