Opening Of Foreign-Language Schools In Armenia

The initiative was proposed by the Ministry of Education and Science of Armenia and had roused much concern and caused a deep divide in the Armenian society.

Proponents say reopening of foreign-language schools will be a good chance for future offspring to get a high-quality education at home, while opponents counter it amid fears that they will deepen the gap between different layers of society and will put the Armenian identity at threat.

 The move sparked a storm of criticism from opposition politicians, media and public figures, including those loyal to the government. Opponents believe it endangers the constitutional status of Armenian as the country’s sole official language. 

Critics believed that the new amendments will cause emerging many schools teaching subjects in a foreign language. Some fear the measure is a veiled attempt to restore Russian-language education in Armenia’s public schools that was banned shortly after the country gained independence in 1991.

 Since the discussions on the project of introducing amendments to the Law on Language and the Law on General Education have began, activists had created a group named “We are against reopening of foreign-language schools in Armenia” in the social networking website Facebook. Now it has over 3300 members, Their main demand is “not to make the Armenian language the language of workers, and foreign languages - the language of science, art and intellectuals. “We are not against teaching our children foreign languages. We are not against creating elite schools, which would ensure high-level of education and whose graduates would become our elite. The question is what language Armenian intellectuals will speak,” said a group activist. 

Each of them brings their arguments against opening foreign-language schools in Armenia, predicting division in society, weakening of national security and infringement of citizens’ right of general education.

The other part of the intelligentsia that insists on opening of foreign-language schools and thus bridging Armenia with the outer world believes that 10-15 schools cannot destroy the national identity of Armenians.

On June 9, 2010, during the discussion of the bill in the National Assembly, these MPs insisted that in case of opening of these schools, pupils should study in foreign schools beginning with the 7th grade only, on condition the Armenian History, Armenian Language and Literature, and Ecclesiology be taught in the native language.

A council of prominent political and public figures advising President Serzh Sarkisian joined opposition critics in rejecting the government bill.

Vazgen Manukian, the chairman of the Public Council, said the presidential body had formally submitted a unanimous and negative assessment of the bill to Sarkisian and hoped that it would be withdrawn from the Armenian parliament. 

Such schools have been banned since 1993, when the government, in which Manukian had served as prime minister under the presidency of the current opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian, closed them amid a post-Soviet wave of nationalism, ensuring the supremacy of the Armenian language in the national education system. A law on education adopted at the time stipulates that only members of ethnic minorities and foreign citizens could study in schools where the main subjects are taught in foreign languages.

The Armenian government approved a set of draft amendments to the law removing the ban. The move sparked a storm of criticism from opposition politicians, media and public figures, including those loyal to the Sarkisian administration. They believe it endangers Armenian’s constitutional status as the country’s sole official language.

According to Manukian, the proposed amendments “do not agree to our national and state interests.” He said the Armenian Ministry of Science and Education drafted them in response to the Presidential Council’s recent calls for to set up independent commissions that would suggest ways of boosting declining educational standards. “We tried to take a step forward but got a step towards an abyss,” he told a news conference.

With an eye to that Soviet past, most critics assume the proposed schools would be Russian-language institutions. The amendments, however, do no specify the language of instruction.

“I have a Russian-language education and have always experienced problems with the Armenian language and method of expression,” said the 48-year-old Apatian. “Can you imagine what will happen if foreign-language schools -- meeting international standards, as they say -- are opened? We will go back to Soviet times again; the image of Armenian schools and our nation will suffer.”

During the Soviet era, fluent knowledge of Russian was considered a ticket to prestigious employment opportunities and a prosperous lifestyle. Therefore, Armenian-language schools were considered undesirable by most aspiring Armenians.

Minister Ashotian said the proposal has nothing to do with favoring Russian-language schools over Armenian-language institutions.

The foreign-language schools “will not turn into a network of Russian schools,” he insisted during a late May 2010 news conference. “This will not be a revival of the Russian- school era.” Knowledge of Russian is simply a matter of Armenians remaining “competitive” in today’s marketplace, Ashotian asserted.

A 2009 survey conducted by the Caucasus Research Resource Center in Yerevan reported that just 24.8 percent of 2,555 Armenian respondents identified their knowledge of Russian as “advanced.”

There is suspicion the government proposed the measure at Moscow’s command. Armenia has the friendliest ties of any country in the South Caucasus with the Kremlin, as shown by the hundreds of millions of dollars in financial aid that Moscow made available to Yerevan during the depths of the global financial crisis. Russian companies now control Armenia’s energy system, and hold large investments in its telecommunications, as well as the mining and petrochemical sectors.

“I’m convinced that this initiative has been dictated by the Kremlin. This is a continuation of Russia's new imperialist policy,” said analyst Suren Surenyants, a senior member of the opposition Republic Party's Political Council. “The opening of foreign-language schools is a great danger for Armenia’s independence. It’s dangerous for both national and societal reasons.”

A November 2009 statement by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Yakovenko about a push to make Russian an official or international language throughout the Commonwealth of Independent States is helping to fuel concern in some corners of Yerevan. Yakovenko noted there would be no problems with this initiative in Armenia.

At a conference in late 2009 on Russian-language schools in Armenia, Minister Ashotian declared Russian as “the language of our common future,” the Newsarmenia.ru website reported. As an illustration of those sympathies, in 2007 Ashotian issued a CD of Russian-language songs he had written entitled “Za” or “For.”

The controversial legal amendments allowing the existence of foreign-language schools in the country were adopted by the National Assembly in the first reading by 71 votes to 13, with one abstention, amid continuing protests staged outside the parliament building by the most vocal opponents of the measure.

A leader of the assembly’s pro-government majority marked the authorities will not rush to have the bill adopted in the second and final reading and are ready to make extra changes in it.

Despite these and other restrictions, the parliament’s two opposition factions representing the Armenian Revolutionary Federation and the Heritage Party voted against the bill. Their representatives stood by their demands the government make no changes in the language.

Armen Ashotian said the government had considered the criticism expressed by politicians and public figures and incorporated rules in the bill

According to the minister, foreign-language schools will not be state-run and will compulsorily provide teaching of Armenian-related subjects, such as language, literature, history, etc, in Armenian and in the same volume as in other, Armenian-language schools.

“Students in these schools will have the same requirements for sitting the graduation exam in the Armenian language,” Ashotian stressed.

The first Russian language school in Armenia opened in 1937 and by 1980s 25% of schools in Armenia were Russian, the percentage in Yerevan being much higher. Armenians speaking Russian to each other in Yerevan was a widespread and threatening phenomenon.

Ashotyan stressed the opening of foreign-language schools in Armenia will not affect the quality of Armenian-language education. “A third of subjects will be taught in Armenian,” the Minister said. The main aim of opening foreign-language schools is simultaneous school education in Armenian and foreign languages for students to have a good knowledge of both Armenia and foreign languages. “Just one example, Armenia ranks last as to the knowledge of foreign languages among people aged 16 to 35 in the South Caucasus,” Ashotyan said. The first foreign-language school is to be opened in Armenia in 2012-2013. The schools will not be licensed, but working under mutual recognition agreements.

Minister Ashotyan thanked all the opponents. He said productive debate helped improve the document.

The bill provides for the opening of 11 foreign-language schools in Armenia. Two private schools are to be opened in Dilijan and Jermuk, with the annual tuition fee to reach U.S. $20,000. In these schools the seventh-graders will switch over to foreign-language education. The rest nine schools are to be opened under interstate agreements, with ninth- graders to switch over to foreign-language education.

Many Armenians, who during the Soviet era studied in the Russian schools, lack the basic knowledge of Armenian culture and still carry on speaking Russian. Continuation of this trend is the Russian language broadcast programs that fill many supposedly Armenian television programs.