Greek students protest against university reforms

The government says reforms will improve their operation and reduce massive funds spent on overseas education.The reform -- the second in four years -- will be put to a vote on Wednesday after a two-day debate in parliament.Opposing the overhaul, which has also been criticised by university boards, student groups are to demonstrate in Athens and Thessaloniki later in the day.The government is seeking to break the power of party-controlled student groups which have influenced university politics for decades, controlling the election of directors, staff appointments and even examination grades.Thousands of Greek families annually send their children to study abroad instead of choosing their own countrys institutions which are regularly shut down by student occupations and protests.Vandalism and looting at university laboratories during such protests is also commonplace, with police barred from intervening under laws enacted to protect freedoms after the fall of an army dictatorship in 1974.Critics say the overhaul puts undue emphasis on business-oriented degrees to the detriment of academic disciplines less in demand by employers.Every attempt to regulate education usually meets with protest in Greece.In a speech to parliament late on Tuesday, Prime Minister George Papandreou said that a previous reform by his father Andreas to allow students a say in how universities operated 30 years ago had been twisted beyond recognition.Student leaders have traded with professors who sought management posts. This backing was given in return for all sorts of concessions including grades, said Papandreou, who was education minister in 1988-9 and 1994-6.The purchase of consciences turned Greek universities into centres that do not teach morals and meritocracy but the disease of the Greek political system, clientelism, he said.