“Tigran Sargsyan, disregarding the real subject, real leverage, tries to draw attention to secondary things and furthermore put forward his poor knowledge about overcoming poverty for the Cabinet members’ consideration,” this is how during a conversation with Aravot.am, former Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Hrant Bagratyan commented on Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan’s statement that availability of education was an important precondition for overcoming poverty. Let us remind that the Cabinet approved the project of assessing the educational needs of 16-18-year-old children registered in the needy family assessment system of the Republic of Armenia, supporting them and monitoring. Tigran Sargsyan stated that this issue had a statistical basis in Armenia that also proved the importance of the project, “If the head of the family has graduated from the university, only 12% of such families are poor. So, 88% of such families are not poor. When the head of the family has not graduated from the university, 60% of such families are poor.” According to H. Bagratyan, Ukraine and Latvia are the countries, where 100% of population graduates from the university, “In Ukraine 650 out of 10000 people are students, whereas in Armenia they are 340. Nonetheless, poverty rate in Ukraine is 20%. Unlike Ukraine, in Japan 220 students out of 10000 people, thrice less, are students. Poverty rate is only 4% in Japan. So, Tigran Sargsyan’s ideas just not correspond to the reality. Tigran Sargsyan is just unaware of the numbers I talk about. The only way to overcome poverty is imposing progressive income tax. They seemingly fulfilled the demand for 100 steps, but they did it in the manner that is just ridiculous.”
Aravot.am quizzed among our compatriots in Downtown Yerevan about overcoming poverty. Very few agreed with Tigran Sargsyan and the majority of residents of Yerevan who took part in the quiz stated that they had graduated from the university, but couldn’t find a job or the salary they got didn’t suffice.
“I am a bachelor in pedagogy, I am a specialist in 5 disciplines, but now I sell lemon in the street to take care of my family. I don’t want to say anything else,” said 49-year-old Karen.
Read also
Watch the video for more details.
Lusine Khachatryan
