Socialists to vote against private universities law

Socialist PASOK leader Nikos Androulakis said on Thursday that the party will vote against the bill to institutionalize non-state, nonprofit universities, noting that while public institutions of higher education must be strengthened with resources, equipment, staff and research, it is necessary to provide for a single assessment authority for both the public and non-public universities.

The bill for “the establishment of non-state, nonprofit branches of foreign universities in Greece” is to be tabled in Parliament by the government next week.

“We will not vote for the law, because we want a clean solution to higher education and not commercialization, which undermines a serious non-state nonprofit [university] and ultimately the public university,” Androulakis said. Government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis derided Androulakis, saying he is “a progressive in words, but in practice a representative of the most genuine anachronism.”