Greece’s Education Minister, Sofia Zaharaki, threatened to expel students from universities with immediate effect if they are involved in violent incidents.
Speaking to state broadcaster ERT on Tuesday, Zaharaki said students would lose their status immediately and this is one of the government’s efforts to suppress attacks on Greek university campuses.
Next to the immediate expulsion system of students the minister also revealed the introduction of a university entry card system to control campus access.She revealed also a set of strict new measures aimed to address violence in the universities of the country.
The occasion for the new measures were two recent incidents in Athens one at the Law School and one at the Polytechnic School campus.
Law School: One student was injured when he was attacked and hit on the head with a fire extinguisher in the head by a group of people wearing hoods during the career-days event last week. Nobody was arrested.
Polytechnic campus on Monday: the lessee of the campus canteen was slapped in the face when she tried to stop a student from hanging a poster on the canteen glass windows. A PhD student was arrested.
Minister Zaharaki stated that “students proven through judicial process to have been involved in such events would not only lose their student status but may also be held financially responsible for any damages incurred.”
She added that “we will make it easier for those in charge to act, with penalties graded according to each case.”
The Minister did not bother to explain what will happen with the student and his/her studies in the long period of awaiting for the trial and the final decision if he applies to Appeal Courts.
Also she did not determine whether this “legislation” will refer to violent incidents in the areas of university and campus only or will extend to te whole students life of a person.
The Greek conservative government has been trying to address violence in universities with half-measures such as the university police, a project that flopped right from the beginning and was quickly dead and buried.
PS Governments cannot address social problems only with autocratic measures and fines, but start addressing the roots of these problems first.