An administrative employee who publicly admitted to sabotaging a University of Athens server on Monday, which resulted in the cancellation of several end-of-the-semester online exams, has been suspended from his post pending an internal investigation, it was announced on Tuesday.
The man, who identified as a union representative for administrative staff of tertiary institutions throughout the country, spoke to reporters outside a building at the specific university’s campus where the computer server is housed.
The server was taken down for an hour as part of protests against a draft bill that would allow the Greek state to recognize non-state, non-profit higher education institutions operating on its territory.
He said staff members and college students helped put the server offline for one hour.
As a result, the Athens University – officially called the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens – on Tuesday announced the installation of a second backup server to manage such online exams. The latter are necessary for schools and faculties suffering from “sit-ins” by opponents of the draft bill.
Similar disciplinary action is pending against other employees involved with the unprecedented incident.
Specifically, final exams in two law school courses, one philosophy school course and two in the natural sciences department were cancelled as a result of the self-styled industrial action.
