The meetings between the Minister of Education Konstantinos Arvanitopoulos and the Rectors of the 8 universities affected by the suspension measure have not had any real effect.
The Senate of the National Technical University has demanded that the suspension measure be abolished since it will be “unable to recondiv the institution’s administrative operations under these conditions”, while the administrative employees continue their strike for the 12th consecutive week.
Arvanitopoulos’ “five-step plan”
The Minister of Education presented a five-step plan to the Rectors to pass on to the administrative employees who refused to meet with him. According to the plan:
- All applications will be reviewed again to ensure there are no errors in employee details,
- Administrative employees who did not submit their details when requested will be suspended rather than dismissed,
- Short-staffed universities (such as the University of Athens) will be supported through inter-institutional staff mobility,
- 400 faculty positions still pending will be covered,
- The status of research personnel will be revised.
Administrative employees have reported that thee were many mistakes and irregularities in the Ministry’s lists of dismissals and suspensions. Two members of the committee tasked with drafting the lists requested to see the corrections in the lists before they were to be published and after being denied, they and their deputies were promptly replaced by two employees from the Ministry of Education.
