The bill of the Ministry of Education concerning the establishment of non-state, non-profit universities was passed by the Parliament.
On principle, 159 deputies voted “yes”. 129 deputies voted “no” and 11 deputies “present”. A total of 299 MPs voted.
The bill was accepted in principle and on the articles by a majority.
Earlier, an intense confrontation prevailed in the Parliament, at the level of political leaders on the bill, with the Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis criticizing Nikos Androulakis for the proposal of PASOK, saying that “no one has understood what the Nordic model is, what you are saying it’s a norse crossword.’ “We cannot follow you, Mr. Androulakis, from your pirouettes,” said the prime minister.
For his part, Mr. Androulakis spoke of an “imitation of reform that does not provide any substantial answer to the major problems”.
The head of the SYRIZA Parliamentary Group, Sokratis Famellos, said that “you are doing all this so that some of your cronies, some fund, can make a profit”.
K. Pierrakakis: Criticism of SYRIZA and PASOK
In his own intervention, the Minister of Education, Kyriakos Pierrakakis, criticized the statement of Alexis Tsipras, who spoke against the bill, saying: “I want to share with the body my relief. Because if it will have the fate of the previous public placement before your conference, good wind in our sails”, said Mr. Pierrakakis.
Responding to PASOK’s criticism, he asked whether constitutionalists such as Venizelos, Alivizatos and Manitakis are not “conspirators”, while, addressing the seats of the official opposition, he wondered whether SYRIZA was condemning the Minister of Education of his government, Costas Gavroglou, who had submitted an order for the recognition of diplomas of international organizations in our country.
The Minister of Education closed his intervention with a personal reference: “Because some things were heard from a PASOK executive about janissaries, and Sultan Orhan, let me say that the constant practice of the sultans is discipline. And the exercise of party discipline by a certain party in this particular initiative, in order to be able to contain its internal disagreement, and the disagreement that exists at the level of its executives today is the most characteristic of all”.
Mrs. Mitsotakis: “A radical change in Greek education”
“Parliament is called today to approve a radical cut in Greek education”, the prime minister said earlier, adding that the bill “on the one hand offers young people more options to study in their country, on the other hand it aspires to include Greece in the international educational map”.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis argued that “we are the last to have a harsh state monopoly in higher education”, he estimated that “all these changes have the overwhelming support of Greek society” and expressed the opinion that “the time when some made a career out of shouting ‘out the companies from the universities” has passed irretrievably”.
He criticized the president of SYRIZA, Stefanos Kasselakis, saying that “if the university he studied at came to set up a branch in Greece, he would say no. How much hypocrisy?”
The spikes towards the president of PASOK were also intense: “Mr. Androulakis, you changed your mind despite the fact that we tried to include in the bill all the concerns you had expressed before this debate started.” “Greece cannot remain captive to doctrines and anachronistic concepts”, noted Mr. Mitsotakis.
N. Androulakis: “The title “non-profit” is misleading”
“The bill was drafted in secret. The title “non-profit” is misleading. A fund and a for-profit foreign university can establish only a for-profit branch in Greece”, stated, among others, the president of PASOK, Nikos Androulakis.
“We have the same position after 2006. Establishment of real non-state non-profit universities, respecting the Constitution and consensual revision of a. 16, from the time when G. Papandreou was president of the party”, he added.
As he said, “we want the country to move forward with meritocracy and rules. It is very easy to say that PASOK has become a “green SYRIZA” or that it is like the New Left or that it is a “centrist KKE”. Unfortunately for you, we are PASOK that has a proposal.”
Regarding the so-called “Nordic example”, Mr. Androulakis argued saying that “we do not sacrifice the value of academic life on the altar of profit”.
S. Famellos: “You trample on the Constitution”
“Why do you trample the dreams of the youth and the Constitution to satisfy the interests of a few cronies? You are doing all this so that some of your cronies, some fund, can make a profit”, said the head of K.O. of SYRIZA-PS, Sokratis Famellos.
Mr. Famellos stated that “the 1975 Constitution proves that post-political Greece, 50 years ago, was much more advanced and much more progressive than you are today, because then it predicted and imprinted on the foundation stone of our Republic that higher education is not a commodity and that students are not customers. And here you come 50 years later, with a deeply conservative view to say that higher education is a commodity and students are customers.”
2024-03-08 22:28:32