Ashotyan: Armenian universities deserve genuine self-government, not  arbitrary control by political masters 

ArmInfo. Armenian universities deserve genuine self- governance, not absolute arbitrary rule by their new political masters, according to Armen Ashotyan,  Vice Chairman of the Republican Party of Armenia, who is currently under arrest.

According to him, in 2018, when the "velvet revolution" swept the  country, the higher education sector was promised unprecedented  development and complete independence. However, nearly a decade  later, the latest data from the Academic Freedom Index reveal a  shocking reality: the current authorities have not only failed to  ensure long-term progress, but have actively contributed to the  decline of academic freedom, sinking the country to a lower level  than before.

 "The comparable index for Armenia has fallen from 0.67 in previous  years to 0.58. Nikol Pashinyan's administration has turned what was  supposed to be a democratic revival into a classic example of  bureaucratic centralization and total control. The tragedy of  Armenia's academic trajectory is that the foundations for real  progress were once fully available. By 2016, numerous profound  reforms had been implemented in line with European best practices,  and after the political upheaval of 2018, international organizations  provided Pashinyan's government with unique "support." Already in  2019, Armenia's Academic Freedom Index reached a historic high of  0.84. Instead of institutionalizing this newfound opportunity and  granting universities real independence, the current government  simply squandered it.  Instead of protecting the autonomy of  universities, the administration introduced legal mechanisms that  systematically destroyed the system. The campaign, which began with  loud slogans, eventually took a new direction, turning into "This has  led to an unprecedented concentration of state control over higher  education. The most telling evidence of the current government's  policy incompetence is the sharp decline in the institutional  autonomy index, which has fallen from 2.1 to a dismal 1.6," Armen  Ashotyan said.

He noted that, under a false pretext of modernization and  Europeanization, the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and  Sports carried out controversial structural "reforms" that radically  changed the composition of university councils. "While universities  previously maintained a stable balance, today they are completely  constrained by a blind majority appointed directly by the state. By  changing the rules of the game and granting the government decisive,  exclusive leverage over the appointment of rectors and financial  management, the Pashinyan administration has effectively legislated  gross state interference.  Independent civil society assessments,  including CEPA monitoring, have shown that these new administrative  obstacles to the formation of councils have simply stifled the de  facto independence of leading Armenian universities, turning them  into ministerial appendages. The administration's defenders often try  to justify this by claiming that individual scholars now have greater  freedom to choose their research topics. However, this empty argument  brazenly masks the harsh reality: universities are deprived of real  academic freedom. The current government has saturated the system  with bureaucratic, rigid top- down regulation. As a result, the  Campus Integrity score has fallen from a previously stable level of  2.2 to 1.9. The modern Armenian university environment is constrained  by a heavy atmosphere of administrative pressure, where  state-appointed councils and rectors "They guarantee that  institutional decisions invariably reflect the political whims and  connivance of the executive branch," the politician emphasized.

He stated that the erosion of university independence is not  happening out of nowhere: it is a direct symptom of a general and  profound democratic regression that has gripped Armenia in recent  years. By early 2018, idealized promises had been completely replaced  by completely opaque governance, repression, judicial arbitrariness,  and a systemic intolerance of institutional checks and balances. "The  numbers don't lie. By allowing the comparable index to decline  compared to previous years' levels, the current government has, among  other things, sealed a lost decade for the Armenian academic  community.  Individual freedoms cannot thrive in the long term in the  context of structurally vulnerable and repressive institutions. When  the government undermines the autonomy of universities to achieve  political subordination, it simply limits the intellectual potential  of the entire nation. Armenia's universities deserve genuine  self-governance, not the absolute arbitrariness of their new  political masters," the RPA chairman concluded.