Students protesting at Education Ministry in northern Athens
Hundreds of students were gathered outside the Education Ministry in the northern Athens suburb of Maroussi on Thursday protesting plans to merge state technical colleges (TEI) with the country’s universities.
Some 400 students from the Athens and Piraeus TEIs were taking part in the rally, voicing fears over the planned merger of their institutions for the creation of the “University of Western Attica.”
TEI students and teachers are concerned that nationwide mergers will downgrade the importance of technical and vocational training studies, while for their part, university academics and students fear their degrees would decrease in value as a result.
