However much Republicans object, it is obvious that every election campaign proves again and again that schools are part of the vicious system and are actively, you can say, cynically used in elections to ensure the government’s reproduction. It is an undeniable fact that school principals demand of teachers to draw up lists of people who will supposedly vote for Taron Margaryan, and those lists are sent to the local offices of the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) or to the offices of administrative districts, which is the same (watch the video of A1+). I wrote “which is the same,” but it should not be the same: the administration of the district should be a state body, not a political-partisan body; its functions by no means include mobilization of the administrative resource and criminal elements of the neighborhood to ensure the victory of the incumbent mayor. However, since the very incumbent mayor appoints the head of a district, and the latter manages the other workers, and all of them are linked through corruption risks, so to speak, all those people will benefit, if the incumbent mayor stays in office, and to achieve that, they should pretend to be “Republicans.” If another mayor comes to power, he will appoint other heads of districts who will enjoy “corruption risks” with other teams, and those teams will pin the badge of the proper party. Therefore, the problem is not partisanship of administrative districts – it is a result – but rather the system, which makes one mix up “state and private wool.”
In the case of schools, the situation becomes more worrying in the sense that given such a scheme, children willingly or unwillingly witness the humiliation of school principals, vice-principals, and teachers, which, to put it mildly, does not contribute to the increase in their civic consciousness. A school or kindergarten principal is compelled to pin the badge of the ruling party, because, otherwise, the administrative district will not “look after” his/her school. And in order to have it “looked after,” the school administration, as Ostap Bender would say, is required to do “multifold small services” in return for every calorie. Certainly, those include these “electoral services.” You might ask why one needs the list of that “potential electorate,” which the administrative district orders the principal, the principal orders the teachers, and the teachers naturally talk with schoolchildren’s parents on that issue. It is secret ballot, isn’t it? Yes, it is secret ballot, but one can “work” with those “reliable” people, to hand out election bribes, put them under different kinds of psychological pressure, and if it is at least 50% effective, it is a good result.
The problem here is two-sided. On the one hand, the government should realize that one cannot use schools for political purposes. On the other hand, principals and pedagogues should understand that their mission is much higher. Is what I say a utopia?
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
