The Heritage Party parliamentary group was one of the fiercest strugglers for financing science, solving problems in the field of science in the former convocation of the National Assembly. Now, when there are serious problems in the Heritage Party with regard to the political divorce, a question arises whether the parliamentary group will continue to struggle for that field with the same rhythm and whether it isn’t going to demand an increase in salaries of scientists from the Cabinet.
During a conversation with www.aravot.am, Ruben Hakobyan, the leader of the Heritage Party parliamentary group, said in this regard, “I would like you to judge in accordance with the results of our work. I think that it hasn’t been visible also in regard to this area that there has been a retreat. The problems of the Heritage Party have nothing to do with it. Proposals that will be made in the short run include the proposals made during the discussion on the previous year’s budget, and we added to them what had to be added. Therefore, active discussions in the same fields as before will continue now too. We will not retreat.”
In response to our question whether it wasn’t ridiculous and nonsense that science was a high-priority field in our country, but even in accordance with the official statistics, scientists were among the lowest-paid specialists, Ruben Hakobyan said, “Yes, they say it is a high-priority, but this field has not been a high-priority for the past 20 years. It cannot be seen in practice. When we check out the budget’s philosophy and financing, we realize that it is not a high-priority at all. One of our main capitals in the Soviet times was science. It was our mental, accurate and long-lasting capital. Unfortunately, it has deteriorated too much.”
Ruben Hakobyan is against setting specific percentage for science. According to him, it is done only in mature countries, when everything is clear, the priorities are checked and setting the percentage is really a necessity, “It is clear that we have the field of defense and different fields, in which we can maneuver at the moment and which could be included in the budget with a certain percentage. However, unfortunately, science has never been a priority for our budget in the past 20 years. It has always been of less importance. It has been even less important than education, art, culture and I can see a PhD, a professor outside the consulate general in St. Petersburg selling greens. This is a result of the attitude toward science. As far as I can understand, this budget doesn’t specifically mention that the Cabinet gives priority to science.”
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Let us mention that the Heritage Party thinks it is absolutely possible to quadruple the financing of science at present.
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
