Thousands of Greek students protested against a planned education reform

Thousands of Greek students gathered in Athens and other cities to protest against planned educational reforms that would allow the introduction of private universities in the country, Kathimerini reported.
The conservative government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who won a second term last year, is expected to introduce a bill in parliament this month that would allow private universities to open in Greece.
The government said they would operate as affiliates of foreign universities. Many believe that the move will devalue degrees from Greece's public universities and that the private system will exclude those who cannot afford it.
The change would "tear apart the state university as we knew it," said student Christina Iliopoulos, who joined the protest in Athens. "It's going to destroy our daily lives in terms of how we're going to be able to get jobs after we graduate," she added.
The protests were largely peaceful, but there was a brief clash in Athens between protesters and police who fired tear gas.
Universities in Greece are government funded institutions and have been free for decades.
But Greece has implemented a series of educational reforms in the past despite fierce opposition from students and staff.
The government, which enjoys a parliamentary majority, says the reform will boost the economy by attracting back some of the 40,000 or so students now studying abroad and stem the "brain drain" from academia caused by the debt crisis of 2010-2018 /BGNES