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The Chairman of the Armenian National Assembly Standing Committee on Science, Education, Culture, Youth and Sport Affairs Artak Davtyan gave an interview to Panorama.am.

-Mr. Davtyan, recently discussions on making amendments to the laws “on Language” and “on Education” and particularly, on establishing foreign-language schools in Armenia have intensified. What do you think about the issues and why the committee has not discussed them yet?

- The issue is being discussed and questions and concerns over it come to be quite a lot. Moreover, I have had questions myself and I think, unless we find proper solutions to the questions, the National Assembly can hardly turn on the green light.
The whole thing is that actually we have a problem with the quality of education. It’s natural that the establishment of some educational micro-environment is necessary and one or two world-famous institutions are needed. But all this should be in harmony with Armenia and the conditions in Armenia since the problem number one is build all this basing on Armenian identity and way of thinking. There is no alternative to this.

-To you, has the society profoundly got the idea of the law, which, as you say, is actually in ensuring quality?

- Let’s understand that actually the issue has not been well perceived by the society and it is not the case that we are going to establish dozens of foreign-language schools. Moreover, there is going to be a few of them and less than the 2 percent mentioned in the bill. I repeat, it is going to be the best of what there is in the world. That is to say, if we have 1410 state schools, several public schools can be justified…

- In this case, how do you explain the rumor?

- I link it with the unawareness since people, to me, not quite perceiving the issue, they immediately go to the former Russian schools and make comparisons. Eventually, who will mind the increase of education level and quality?

-Mr. Davtyan, don’t you think that the phenomenon of such ‘elite’ schools is quite vulnerable?

- Vulnerability, of course, should not be permitted and it’s not in vain that I mentioned the former Russian schools. The problem will not rise since in this context no negative opinion will be formed over the children who will be among the best and will be able to continue education in such schools.

-Mr. Davtyan, according to your colleagues, including the parliamentary majority and the opposition, the law should prescribe age at which the children will be allowed to these schools. Do you agree?

-The best solutions will be found during the talks and I’m happy the issue was widely discussed. What is evident now is that this is not the best solution what we have currently. We need some limitations and ideas to get the best variant and the more suggestions we get, the better the bill will come to be.