Before September 1 of each year, different social figures and teachers start to say that the educational programs should be changed and brought into compliance with the demands of the market. Those generally right speculations are against the background of nostalgic sentiment as if in those good Soviet times, the youth were given comprehensive education that ensured wide outlook and now they try to give more concrete knowledge, in order not to lag behind the “wrong” West. Admittedly, I was acquainted with an American psychologist at the time who hadn’t read a single line written by Freud – he didn’t need that, because it was far from the area of his activities.
If we ask an abstract question – what is better to have Soviet “wide and comprehensive” education or the Western “narrow and professional” one – it will be possible to find a few dozens of arguments in favor and against. But let us examine the issue from today’s perspective. If there is a market economy, if an employer is compelled to compete with other employers, his employee must be able to do concrete things – things that the employee of the rival employer cannot. Let me give you my example as an employer – if an alumnus with a diploma with honors comes to me, I don’t care about that at all; he has to cover an area, which is not covered in my newspaper or is covered badly, he has to put forward a project, which will bring me, the owner, a profit. Therefore, when I am asked whether there are vacancies in my newspaper, it is an obsolete approach; there are limitless vacancies in my newspaper for those who will help me make money.
When the Communists were in power, there was a planned economy. Guess, factories would report to the Gosplan (State Planning Committee) that there was a demand for a certain number of engineers, the Gosplan would inform universities about that. At least in 1970s-80s, that system didn’t work very well, because reports on numbers usually didn’t correspond to the reality, which was the reason why there were thousands of unemployed engineers. However, even if the planned economy was impeccable, it is not applicable today. I ought to learn engineering for two reasons: 1. I don’t want to work at any factory, I just want to get knowledge, widen my outlook; 2. I want to become such an engineer by employing whom the owner of the given factory will profit. However, in our country, those healthy motivations are hardly present. Instead, there are false motivations – people are admitted to universities to do something for another 5 years and because it is common, one “must” have higher education. It is not accidental that even our ignorant business MPs bought a diploma of some university at the age of 40-45.
Therefore, yes, educational programs are to be changed, but one should change the motivation for education.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
