Areg Mikayelyan, a leading scientist of the Byurakan Observatory and a co-chairman of the Armenian Astronomical Society, stated, talking about the budget approval during a conversation with www.aravot.am: “Yesterday the National Assembly gave its final approval to the budget, and they talked about wages again. Different MPs and ministers said that their pay was still low compared to that of prosecutors, which is more than a million drams, and
there was a special decision to make it 1.5 million in the future. Moreover, the salary of MPs and ministers is around 300 000 drams. They think it is low. By the way, while talking about wages, no one mentioned that scientists earn 60 000 drams, and the youth earn the minimum wage – 32 500.”
Asserting that he personally doesn’t have a complex of low wage, since he is a scientist involved in many international programs and gets grants, Areg Mikayelyan calls such discussions “immorality,” “Talking about a low pay under these circumstances is immorality, to say the least, if we compare the work of ministers, MPs and scientists, we will see that a scientist’s work is not less difficult, doesn’t require less knowledge than that of a minister or an MP, it even is a few times more difficult, whereas he gets 5 times less. And what do MPs do? They mainly sit, listen, vote, that’s it. And a scientist collects 10 times more material for one research, examines, familiarizes himself with the literature. After hearing that conversation yesterday, I became more convinced that a scientist should earn more than a judge or a prosecutor. And it should be normalized in our country. One shouldn’t be guided by the principle – let us increase the wages so that they don’t abuse the office. If a scientist doesn’t abuse, he should get less? That very attitude is abuse.”
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Gohar HAKOBYAN
