The “categorical opposition” of SYRIZA-PS to the bill promoted by the government for non-state universities was expressed by Stefanos Kasselakis in a short greeting he addressed at an event of the party’s executive committee in the Parliament with the participation of education bodies and chambers.

The president of SYRIZA accused the government of legislating with “authoritarianism” and lack of “common sense”emphasizing that this is what he does with the bill for the establishment of private universities.

Specifically, accuses the government of “using violence” against the students“extortions” of university and “infringement” of the Constitution, referring not only to the conclusion of the seven constitutional experts but also to what was publicly supported by the former vice-president of the Council of State. “Ms. Maria Karamanov argues that such practices undermine the Democracy and are dangerous” he said characteristically and wondered why “the government acts as if it has now discovered truths hidden in the Constitution”.

Accusing the government of ‘hypocrisy’ regarding her words about public universities, she noted that “there are four fundamental conditions to convince a society that a government really cares about public universities: The direct funding from the state budget, student care, the number of teachers hired, teachers’ salaries. “Whatever alchemy is attempted, in the totality of these expenses Greece is last in Europe, with a big difference from the penultimate ones and the deviations in relation to what is done in European public universities are constantly widening” he said, rejecting the government’s argument that these are “fake news” and questioning the “credibility” of the government regarding its commitment to public universities.

“In Europe, even the great majority of conservative governments manage and maintain their country’s universities decentlycommented o St. Kasselakiscontrasting the Greek reality and the “franchise universities” that reflect the government’s “commitments” to “interests”.

“Our categorical opposition to the Government’s bill is accompanied by our categorical position on the strengthening of public universities” underlined the president of SYRIZA, and referred to a “first package of measures” which proposes and includes the “doubling of the number of professors over three years in order to be close to the European average in terms of the ratio of professors to students” and “the doubling of funding from the state budget”, while he pledged to soon announce a “proposal for admission to universities”.