Education Minister Andreas Loverdos gave a written response to questions about the erasure of “eternal students” submitted by two ministers of the right-wing anti-austerity Independent Greeks (ANEL) party. The two ANEL deputies called for flexibility in assessment criteria when deciding which students would be erased from the registers of universities (AEI) and technical colleges (TEI) in light of the economic crisis that has caused problems for many households.

Mr. Loverdos said that the educational institutions would have the exclusive responsibility of deciding which students should be erased after considering conditions and extenuating circumstances for student delays.

The questions came following statements made by Mr. Loverdos about his decision to deal with students who are enrolled on university registers but never show up to classes, a unique Greek phenomenon. In an interview in Proto Thema on the weekend he had said that 200,000 students would be deleted from enrolment lists by September 2014 as these inactive students have already been given enough leeway to finish their studies but choose to remain stagnant.