This is the message of the report “Higher education today in Armenia”.
This report is ordered by the “Open Society Foundations – Armenia” office, which represents the current state of education and the Bologna process deviations.
The Executive Director of “Open Society Foundations – Armenia” Larisa Minasyan, in the interview with “Aravot” told that the people working on the report are wonderful professionals in higher education and higher education reform and development policy.
As per Mrs. Minasyan’s formulation, although the Foundation has a pretty good idea of what is the reality, but the report is not merely the subjective opinion of the Foundation. It is a situational analysis, and a new knowledge that will be useful for both the university and the implementers of reforms.
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Larisa Minasyan, referring to the data in the report, states that there is first of all a quality issue in the education of Armenia, and the establishment of the National Center for Quality Assurance is mistakenly identified with the quality. Our interlocutor notes that such a center can not serve the purpose, because of its Chairman of the Board, the Prime Minister, who is the Chairman of the Board of another university. “It is absurd when you declare something independent, but your country’s legislation does not provide any form of it, on the contrary, it requires its non-independence, obviously resetting the sense of the reform to zero.”
As per Larisa Minasyan, we should not cast blame on the donor for all of this, who has made sufficient funds, and which was founded on the state declared strategy. To our observation that it has been constantly trumpeted that Armenia has assumed the Secretariat of the Bologna process in 2012-2015, and currently is a co-chairing country, Ms. Minasyan noted, – “There are countries that have conceded this honor to Armenia with respect to the expenses, and we accepted it. It is good that we have such pretensions, but should be able to raise the benchmark. While neither we, nor the authors of the report have seen any visible event, increase of requirements in compliance with the benchmark. Only for the fact that the Ministers of Education will be assembled in Armenia, or there will be an event in 2015 and just one conference, would not change a thing, nor standards, nor quality, nor trust.”
According to Deputy Director for Programs of the “Open Society Foundations – Armenia” David Amiryan, the report shows the higher education system conditioned with overall situation of Armenia and politics. He believes and it was voiced during the discussions as well that it need to be an adequate environment for the effective execution of the Bologna process.
“It is first the the general democratic situation of the country, democratic reforms, elections, independence of judicial system, freedom of speech and of the press, defense of the right to express and other rights. In the presence of these guarantees, we can speak of Bologna productive activity.”
He added that their Foundation provided the technical part of the reform, regulatory tools, but it turns out that the provision of formal, documentary part of the paper is not still the reliable guarantee for the implementation of the reform, when the course of our country is changing, and everything that Bologna has stated, appears in the question.
The report alluded to the presence of leaders in the university boards: politicians, members of the government; the RA President is the Chairman of YSU Board, which is an absolute control over the universities. Referring to the report, David Amiryan expresses uncertainty regarding the 50% of state participation in the management board of the universities,- “50% of the State’s participation in the management boards of universities (25% of the members of the management board is suggested by the offering, and 25% – by the Ministry of Education), is directly a control over the academic, creative liberties and the university in general, while the universities, in fact, should have been a place for manifestation and giving birth to all liberties. As for politicized educational councils, they are also a way to suppress the students, dungeon, where the future party and political figure is built. The studentship should be the most rebellion and counterbalance of other structures and operations.”
As per our interlocutor, similar situation becomes a problem during the implementation of educational reform, while entering any university, all regulations with respect to Bologna process are available, everything is in its place by documents. “We give the priority attention to quality, and the quality has not changed. The idea of Bologna with its whole philosophy was taken and directly adapted to our reality.”
As said by David Amiryan, today many professors are remembering the former education system with nostalgia, rather than implementing the reform. According to him, even if all the developed guidelines are available, psychologically we must overcome the internal conflict. David Amiryan referring to the report, expressed the opinion that in this case not only timing but also inefficient waste of resources took place, and the generation, some twenty twenty-five years later, will repay the loan provided by the World Bank, which in fact did not serve the purpose. What solutions can be in the situation of the deadlock?
As said by David Amiryan, even though the image is gray, but there are options that can become subject for discussion with a wide range of public participation. “It is important that not only the professionals get involved or express an opinion, but a more inclusive community is formed, because the education relates to every member of our society, and the educational system – with a few liberties of a man. It’s important to have options that will be out of personal interests of some people, separately taken. We need development ways and policies away from the politics, which will have only one overriding interest, the development of the Republic of Armenia and the society.” In his opinion, all those ways, by which any political party may have an impact of the education sector, should be “closed”.
David Amiryan believes that there should be no official in the management boards of universities, and the Ministry of Education and Science should not participate in the approval of the university’s list of vocational subjects.
To our observation that there was an emphasis in the report that corruption is perceived normally in our educational sector, the Program Coordinator of “Higher Education and study abroad” Anna Gevorgyan said that pursuant to the data of the Transparency International, education is one of the most corrupt sectors in Armenia.
Anna Gevorgyan said that there is an issue of mentality here that education is a priority in the Armenian family, and the parents for the sake of their children’s education are ready for everything.
David Amiryan believes that the situation will change if the society has a demanding approach towards education. During our conversation, there was a referral to the part of the report, where it is talked about non-disposition of financial resources of the universities, independently.
As said by David Amiryan, Bologna offers a system where corruption, if not completely disappeared, at least it will reach the minimum, but because there is the issue of quality, which is connected to the control, politicized situation, in this case, corruption becomes something derivative from other phenomena.
“For example, tuition fees are raised, and I can not say anything negative against it, but I have considerations with its form. As a result of price rise, the salary for certain categories of university professors will rise, the others will rise next year by 5-10 per cent. These salaries rises may not have any effect on the quality, as long as there are no mechanisms to regulate relations. We need to create a system that will be built on the principle of the quality. While, for example, if Head of ANQA is the Prime Minister, who is also the Chairman of the Council of Armenia State Pedagogical University, and the head of the Executive Management, this essentially changes the image. The report says that the state has only 9-33% of participation in funding of the university, and despite this, the universities are considered to be public. So, he dictates an issue of academic liberation, plus the party. And, in this case, do we want to implement reforms? Therefore, we need to find the mechanisms, but as soon as the mechanism are found, the quality will be provided, there will be finances and the university will come out of control, which, in the present case, does is not beneficial to anyone … Bologna assumes that we should go to the European family with our university system, have equal status and cooperation with foreign universities, while we have a very big problem within our country, the universities of Armenia do not cooperate with each other,”- notes the Deputy Director for Programs of “Open Society Foundations – Armenia”.
Gohar Hakobyan
“Aravot” Daily
