ArmInfo. Armenia's President Armen Sarkissian met with representatives of the Armenian intelligentsia.
As the press service of the RA President told ArmInfo, at the beginning of the meeting Sarkissian announced that he expects to hold an open conversation in an informal form. At the same time, he expressed concern about the lack of public discussions with the participation of the intelligentsia in the recent period, a superficial approach to a number of problems in society, the lack of deep analysis of the situation, and a more emotional approach to pressing issues.
The President of Armenia discerned in all this a syndrome of superficial discussion of everything, which is very painful, or in other words "headline syndrome".
He also mentioned that there is another factor in Armenia that worries him, it is connected with pretense, when we make pretense that we have a lot things, for example, a developed sector of information technologies, although in reality everything is different, since having talented people in this industry is one thing, and a developed IT sector is completely different. Sarkissian stated that today about 20 thousand people are employed in this area, while only 5-6 thousand are engaged in programming. Therefore, according to him, talks about the possession of a developed IT sector are just an imitation.
The President of Armenia also spoke about the Hay Park project, which is planned to be implemented on the territory adjacent to the Tsitsernakaberd memorial complex and which, according to the President, will become a kind of symbol of the unity of the Armenian people.
The meeting participants also touched upon the issue of the Armenian language, pointing out the importance of showing the state's attention to the language and respectful attitude, while maintaining the purity of the language, literate speech and writing.
Intellectuals expressed their concern about the change in educational criteria, pointing to the importance of education, national image and national values. Sarkissian said that education is one of the main drivers of development of any country, especially Armenia, where the education system is one of the most sensitive parts of the country's social life.
"It is not so easy to change a school textbook, methodology, attitude. This process should go through a long-term public discussion through public consent. National unity is not only an army, not only culture, but also a textbook by which we teach a child. If we do not have national unity, what can we teach our child, then how can we reach agreement in the field of culture or the army," the President asked, adding that we need to be very attentive to cultural and historical values, have a development strategy where the key places will be occupied by education, culture and, of course, health.