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Students of the Yerevan State University (YSU) are staging a sit-in outside the office of YSU Acting Rector Gegham Gevorgyan, demanding a meeting with them.

Students, who have been protesting Armenia’s Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport Arayik Harutyunyan for weeks, suspended the strike on 20 September pending a response to their letter addressed to the rector and the university’s Academic Board, where they expressed dissatisfaction with the minster’s behavior during a meeting with the YSU academic personnel on 18 November.

The student strike was sparked by the minister’s proposed legislation to cut the Armenian Language, Armenian Literature and Armenian History subjects from the mandatory curriculum of the country’s universities.

“Yesterday we received a response to our letter to the acting rector and to the Academic Board, in which the points mentioned were very declarative and had little saying. We want to understand why an emergency meeting of the Academic Board is not held, why the question is not being discussed,” YSU student program coordinator Edward Galstyan told reporters, warning they will continue the sit-in if the rector refuses to receive them.

Another YSU student Gevorg Gyulumyan said the rector refused to address the concerns expressed by the student at the YSU Faculty of Armenian Philology reporting meeting on Tuesday. “The YSU rector seemed to defend the interests of Armenia’s Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport Arayik Harutyunyan, rather than those of the students,” he stressed.

The student recalled that the letter aimed at clarifying Gegham Gevorgyan’s attitude towards the minister’s behavior during the meeting with the teaching staff, denounced by students as ‘disrespectful’. It also called for convening a YSU Academic Board meeting and requested an opinion over the legislation proposed by the minister.

Later, it was revealed that the YSU rector had turned down the protesting students’ demand for a meeting, citing his heavy workload.

The students unveiled their intention to continue the sit-in until the rector agrees to a meeting with them.