ATHENS – After some delays, a 400-strong force of campus police for troubled Greek universities has begun training and will be deployed in the spring to deal with violence and occupations at the schools.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis also said that more security measures will be put in place to deal with students who are repeat offenders of violence and vandalism and other wrongdoing.

Government spokesman Ioannis Oikonomou tweeted that the government was “responding to society’s demand for open and safe universities,” although some academics and many students vehemently oppose the idea.

The new recruits of the so-called University Institutions Protection Team (OPPI) will attend a basic training program that includes courses in criminal law procedure, constitutional law and criminology.

That’s because they will have to do investigations as well, said Kathimerini, adding that they will be trained in crime scene investigation and evidence preservation as well.

They will also be trained in self-defense and the use of weapons, although they won’t have any, and their courses will include lectures on LGBTTQQIAAP (Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender-Transexual-Queer-Questioning-Interset-Ally-Asexual-Pansexualrights, academic freedom and handling issues of domestic violence, for the purpose of bringing the young guards “closer to university culture.”

Of the 400 new guards, 303 are men and 97 women, while most of them have university and technical school degrees and their tasks include keeping law and order on campuses where the government ended asylum.