A lot of people think that getting a PHD is a good chance to get rid of serving the army. Most part of the students who take postgraduate studies are male. The female students, who modestly give up their places to guys, prefer to study PHD by correspondence. By doing that they help their male classmates get rid of joining the army.
If we look at things from the human persepective, this process may be considered benign, however not in quite fair conditions. “Yes, postgraduates studies are a specific way to avoid serving in the army” – agreed the Head of the Department of Science and Preparation of the Scientific-Pedagogic Staff of the RA Ministry of Education and Science Aram Kosyan. He added: “There is a great percentage of unfairness toward girls. There are many talented girls who refuse to continue their education because of the mentioned reason”. The number of people applying for PHD increases year by year. However, this doesn’t mean that the number of quality scientists is increasing as well. During the last two years 224 students continued their education for PHD and 140 studied by correspondence. The specialists insist that “this is a quantitative shifting and doesn’t imply quality”. The postgraduate student, who “runs away from” the army cannot be a good candidate of science because the university becomes not an educational center but a shelter for him. The sciences suffer as a result. “The postgraduate students are supposed to defend their dissertation within a three-year education period otherwise they will be taken to the army. This has very serious consequences. Very few can manage to prepare a dissertation within such a short period. That’s why most of the dissertations don’t have quality. The students mostly plagiarize or receive help from professors and consider themselves authors of the paper. These kinds of students become candidates of sciences, become lecturers, do scientific researches, etc. The other part refuses sciences. And in the result science suffers.”
A few years ago the decision of the government, according to which, by interrupting their education, the postgraduate students were supposed to go to the army, caused a lot of anger among students. “In fact, the government receded this resistance”, -says A. Kosyan – “But I think that this issue is still on the agenda and will be solved. It’s a wrong policy to take the postgraduate student to the army before finishing the PHD. After the studies they may go to the army. The time of the person, who is occupied with science, should not be limited and within 3 years, being afraid of going to the army, he might write something. Science is creative work and it should not be done in a mandatory manner”. According to A. Kosyan, there are many cases when students, after returning from the army, wish to get a PHD and do a much better job because they are safe – no one is going to “look for them”.
Science Has Become a Fashion
Economics, law, informational science are those departments that are of most interest among young people. The majoirty of postgraduates also prefer to write their dissertations about the fields. “There are few dissertations being written in the fields of industry, physics, electronics and chemistry. The reason is that there are no factories working. What is the student of the Architectural Institute supposed to do after gradation? Let’s say work in science but where in practice will he or she invest the knowledge? There are few specialists occupied with natural sciences and they try to cooperate with international organizations to receive grants and funding. If they receive a profitable job offer from a foreign country they will go there to work. As a result we are losing good specialists and our country is not able to do anything about that because there are no means to keep them here.”
There was a time when the specialist with a PHD was able to easily find a good job but at present there is no guarantee for that. Very often the candidate of science stays unemployed. “There are still people who want to become lecturers or use their diploma for another job. Armenians like to study. There was a time when people were saying that girls need a diploma for their dowry. At present, perhaps, there is equality between the needs of male and female citizens”, says A. Kosyan.
New Document and New Program
Today there are new rules set for the exams and tests of PHD and there are certain changes. “Two years ago the rule of getting a reference letter for admission to postgarduate studies was dismissed because certain lecturers would not write reference letters. However, the newly defined rules contain the mandatory requirement of acquiring reference letters”, said Mr. Kosyan. Besides that, the questions of the exams have become very complicated and the scoring rates are changed. There is one more program, which enables the postgraduate students to conduct researches while studying. “Today all the postgraduates study similar subjects – philosophy, informational science and foreign languages. This means there is no narrow specialization”, says A. Kosyan. “I’m not sure whether the PHD student will be able to write a dissertation after graduation without specialized preparation. These narrowly specialized subjects will help the students to write good-quality dissertations. By this, postgraduate courses will become more organized and focused on certain directions”.
Bribes and Science
After graduating from the economics department of Yerevan State University in 2005 Anna Ananyan decided to continue her education in postgraduate courses. But in order to not harm her male classmates she decided to take the courses by correspondence. Two students were competing for single free of charge course. Many students doubted about Anna’s admission because her opponent had “certain privileges”. “Both of us scored equally”, -says Anna. “The examining commission didn’t know what to do. They were saying that both of us received equal points but there was only one place. However the head of my faculty department insisted putting my grade and said that later the outcome depends on us”. Not being able to do anything, an additional place was opened for Anna. And Anna says: “If I wasn’t stubborn enough I wouldn’t have success”.
When talking about the corruption in the education system the majority of the statesmen try to avoid answering direct questions. However, Mr. Kosyan confessed that he had nothing to hide or be scared of. “Always expect exceptions but you should have probably spoken to legal entities about corruption issues rather than me because they are the ones who see all this but don’t have a chance to do anything”.