I know that the majority of officials will not agree with me, but let’s be honest with ourselves. The “distance education” that took place over the past few months was 90 percent an imitation. The remaining 10 percent was maintained by small numbers of teachers and professors and their extraordinary level of dedication and kindness. Providing children with the same amount of knowledge through distance education requires work that is 3-4 times tenser and more time-constrained than in regular classrooms. Teachers spent all day teaching at home. I do not think that it is possible to depend on that 10 percent kindness. It is not acceptable to demand that people make four times the effort with the same (modest) salary. So, classes need to begin while maintaining safety rules as much as possible. That will be a difficult and uncomfortable process especially for elementary school students. Even more, that process can be stopped at any given point if there is another wave of the virus. The possibility of this is rather huge. But the alternative to starting classes is to continue with the imitation, which will have very negative consequences within 10-15 years.
Read the entire editorial in Armenian: https://www.aravot.am/2020/09/01/1132302/
Aram Abrahamyan
