Former rector Suren Zolyan says about the government program
Suren Zolyan has found out that some articles of the current and previous programs of the government literally repeat each other, which, he is convinced, testifies to the fact that they have not been realized, as, for example, offering more opportunities for national minorities to receive qualified basic education. Our interlocutor is surprised at how one can talk about making education free and available for socially unprotected classes, when there is no mention in the program of how it should be financed, “The reality is that free education places diminish every year.” As for the phrase expressed by Ashotyan during a press conference that one of the methods of fighting corruption in universities might be putting heads of 5 corrupted professors on sticks, Zolyan states, “According to the polls, for example, the level of corruption in the linguistic university is 0.6%, as for the ministry and the system as a whole, it is 70%. So, does it mean that the whole ministry should be decapitated?”
The former rector thinks that the article of the program, which mentions the development of Armenian studies, is ridiculous, since the money spent on the science as a whole is 0.2%.
Read also
In regard to the higher education, Zolyan said about building campuses and dormitories the following – construction is the least controllable field of ‘devouring money.’ “It is a long-standing dream to drive universities away from the center of the city to the regions and turn their buildings into hotels or restaurants. Certainly, there are campuses in Europe too, but the old buildings of universities have been preserved – either the rector’s office or museums are there.”
In the former rector’s words, the opportunity to get the so-called “lifelong learning” should have been the axis of the educational policy, but it has been completely forgotten or is dealt with at the level of NGOs at best. According to him, the program doesn’t mention the system of the National Academy of Sciences and as for providing first-graders with cheap, $50, computers, it is not a big deal, particularly given the fact that one can buy them for $50, but represent as ones that cost $300. “The word ‘Bologna’ should be mentioned in the program of the government this way or another, since Armenia has taken on the Bologna Secretariat. It is represented as a big achievement, but in reality it is not, it is just that other countries didn’t even aspire after that.”
Seizing the opportunity, Suren Zolyan presented a newly-constructed website, www.unifree.am, on which an initiative group puts forward ideas in regard to the higher education development. He proposes to organize discussions on the government program, particularly given the fact that there had been no discussions before the program was
adopted and one can sense the “Serzh style,” which has been spread over universities, throughout the whole program.
GOHAR HAKOBYAN
