Professors and students of the Faculty of Agriculture of the University of Ioannina in Arta are protesting, demanding the legalization of professional rights for graduates.

According to a decision of the General Assembly of the School, all the academic staff are invited to submit their resignations to the rector of the University of Ioannina, Anna Batistatou, arguing that the relevant amendment that has been submitted to the Parliament “is hasty, vague and does not solve the problem”.

In the unanimous decision of the Assembly of the Faculty of Agriculture, it is stated, among other things:

“Article 126 was filed, in a bill of the Ministry of Development and Investments, which “provides” the rendering of the professional rights of agronomist to the graduates of our Schools. The specific article exudes, even now, the willingness of the State not to provide a clear solution to the problem it itself caused. It is written roughly and hastily, maintaining the division into Agricultural Schools that are mentioned by name and all the rest in a pile, which are called fragmentarily and individually to request their recognition, after first giving the opinion of bodies incompetent with the exercise of the profession, without providing express deadlines for the fulfillment of their request, but ends up in the vague report of issuing a Joint Ministerial Decision, creating obvious scope for maintaining the hostage conditions of thousands of graduates. We will bring all this to the attention of the National Delegation in the coming days, so that no one can plead ignorance afterwards.

According to all of the above, we feel that the State is actually questioning our work and its quality. Being fully aware of our actions and with a sense of responsibility and dignity, the members of the academic staff of the Faculty of Agriculture of the University of Ioannina decide to submit our resignations to the honorable Ms. Rector and let’s free the State now from the cost of our payroll, since, it seems, we don’t need it”.