New higher education and science bill deadly blow to Armenia`s  education system - Hayakve

ArmInfo.The new draft law "On Higher Education and Science" of Armenia is a "surrogate" that aims  to deal another fatal blow to science and higher education in our country. 

This was stated by the coordinator of the civil initiative "Hayakve"  Avetik Chalabyan in a conversation with journalists on October 8 in  Yerevan, touching upon the new draft law "On Higher Education and  Science" and the radical reforms in education. According to him, we  are talking about radical changes in the entire scientific and  analytical system. "This is an extremely important issue that should  have been submitted for public discussion. It was necessary to listen  to the opinions of all sectors of society, conduct numerous  discussions and study, including foreign experience," Chalabyan  noted, adding that none of the above was done.

"When it is proposed to liquidate the control functions of the  National Academy of Sciences, it is not difficult to study the  experience of Georgia, where the same was done under pressure from  the West. This led to the lag of fundamental science, a reduction in  the volume of scientific work and a decrease in their international  rating. Today's government treats everything with revolutionary  methods. Someone comes up with an idea, which is then implemented and  the whole society is forced to follow it. In the case when we have  thousands and tens of thousands of beneficiaries, whose opinions are  also important," the representative of the initiative noted.  Chalabyan is sure that this is not about reforms, but about  degradation. To illustrate what he said, he touched on one of the  points of the bill, which prohibits the presence of universities  outside of Akademgorodok. In his opinion, this point will lead to the  closure of many universities, including in the regions of Armenia.

"This means that universities located in the regions will have to be  closed. And today there are 9,000 students studying outside Yerevan,  not to mention the staff who work in these educational institutions,"  Chalabyan explained, expressing his conviction that the closure of  regional universities will negatively affect the development of the  country's regions, which are already in decline.

According to him, the current government must understand that the  more beneficiaries it alienates, the closer its last day becomes.  "This is what we expect: for people to understand what is happening  in their rear," the initiative representative said.

He then criticized the fact that almost all government bills are  published on the e-draft platform (a single site for publishing draft  legal acts - ed.) and discussions and voting on them mostly last only  a short two weeks.

Chalabyan drew attention to the fact that in order to get the desired  result, the Armenian authorities are throwing in information on the  platform using numerous fake users.

"There is no activity on the platform, and literally in one day 1000  people vote for this bill. This is the style of work of this  government: lies, use of fakes and falsifications. Therefore, these  discussions should be taken out of the platform and public  discussions should be held among the beneficiaries: the teaching  staff, scientists, the management of the academy and universities,  representatives of student structures and employers, who are also  beneficiaries. But this does not happen, and we get such a  "surrogate" that is aimed at delivering another fatal blow to science  and higher education in our country," added the head of the "Hayakve"  initiative. Chalabyan complained that since the current government  has a majority in the National Assembly, it will not be difficult for  them to push through this "crazy" project. He was also skeptical that  the current government will listen to the comments raised by expert  circles. To prove his words, the representative of the civil  initiative cited another infamous experience with changing the name  of the textbooks of the History of the Armenian People to the History  of Armenia. Chalabyan stated that despite the fact that the majority  of citizens spoke out against this initiative, the authorities,  however, ignored public opinion and changed the name of the school  textbook.

"The so-called Prime Minister of the country decided that they would  change the name anyway. This shows that public opinion means nothing  to them; they only care about the opinions of Aliyev and Erdogan,"  Chalabyan summed up.

According to the presented draft law "On Higher Education and  Science", Armenia plans to establish new standards for monitoring the  quality of education, introduce a new model for licensing and  accreditation of higher education institutions, and replace the  vertical model of university management with a horizontal one. It is  envisaged that in practice, several levels of management and  regulation of the activities of universities will become independent.  Touching upon scientific organizations and the National Academy of  Sciences, it was noted that, according to the proposed innovation,  the NAS will become a fund managed on the principle of autonomy.