Are High Schools Ready?

As of September 1, 2018, it was expected that the selected schools would begin offering the AB program. However, Anapiosyan said that the introduction of the program in those schools has been postponed for the time being until the Ministry resolves the issues of accessibility, quality, preparedness to implement the program and financing.

Manukyan, on the other hand, stressed that the schools were ready to offer AB but a government decision to raise teacher salaries was never brought to parliament for adoption; a measure that would have secured the implementation of the program this year. “Despite the fact that teachers and schools are thrilled to be part of the program, the initial plan was to introduce financial incentives as well,” stressed Manukyan. “Teachers are required to invest more efforts in the process and have to be adequately compensated for that.”

Anapiosyan said that the reasons for the previous administration not submitting the government degree to parliament are unknown to her and added that even if that decree had been sent to the National Assembly on the day when the new administration came to power, it would have been virtually impossible to implement the program.

Another layer to the story is that a new foundation was to be created by the Government and Ayb Foundation that would solely focus on the AB program and where both parties (the government and Ayb) will focus all their capacity and equally share the rights and responsibilities. According to Manukyan, the decree for the creation of this foundation was never signed by the Ministry of Education. The current administration is not keen on creating new state foundations, on the contrary, many of the ministries are now moving toward closing down GoNGOs. Anapiosyan made clear that the National Institute of Education would be the body that would oversee the implementation of AB, eliminating the necessity of creating a new foundation. Once the program is nationalized “...individual components of the transformation will be implemented by different responsible parties under the supervision of NIE,” Anapiosyan explained.

Araratian Baccalaureate in the Spotlight

Understanding that the new administration needs to study programs initiated by the previous government, Manukyan's main concern is why the AB program was in the spotlight and severely criticized by Minister Harutyunyan. He noted that it would be beneficial for the Ministry as a policy implementer to assure that decisions are not based on personal opinions but rather on professional judgement. Anapiosyan on her part, said that indeed, it is necessary for the Ministry to examine how resources were allocated, not only for AB, but all other initiatives.

Another concern raised by Manukyan was the fact that AB was labeled as “elite” by Harutyunyan, and noted that the Ministry will have difficulty legally defining and justifying what an elite school is. “Society would benefit if we start using accurate terms while characterizing or describing things,” he claimed. In response, Anapiosyan explained that the Ministry, in principle, would not have an issue if students were not selected through an examination system and allowed to study in the program and receive high quality education only if they passed a threshold. “Two students who study at the same school, should not be taught with different programs, two teachers who teach at the same school should not receive different salaries because one participated in a training while the other did not,” she said.

Anapiosyan said that the Ministry realizes that the current educational system is problematic and that lack of financing from the state budget (currently, only 2.1 percent of annual GDP is allocated to education) makes it challenging to register tangible results. The new budget, according to the Deputy Minister, submitted to the Government addresses all the concerns and if accepted, up to 3 percent from the GDP will be allocated to the Ministry of Education.

The Deputy Minister noted that the political ideology of the new administration is based on the pillars of social justice, equality and accessibility of quality education to everyone, and the Ministry has a duty to guarantee this. “We realize that education is not an expense, it is an investment but if in certain fields, the results of our investments are evident after short period time, in the educational sector we need at least 12 years to see the results,” stated Anapiosyan. “Today’s government is pragmatic and realizes that by optimizing state governance we can effectively allocate the limited amount of resources.”