It is strange but August seems to be an month for studying. It is strange because usually students and pupils go on vacation during the summer. This period is very important for educational institutions and schools. This is when universities finish their entrance exams and schools register new pupils for first grade. As a result of some reformations in the education system ,this period has become the most important time to get profit for schools and universities. Universities fill their paid places with new students and thus solve certain problems. According to the current rules schools are provided with financial aid based on the number of students registered. The more pupils they have the more money they receive from the budget. This is the reason why schools try to increase the number of first grade classrooms. In 1992, not many children were born in Armenia. Now in spite of the fact that Armenia “tends” to join the “Bologna” movement it is able to reform the educational system and increase the years up to 12 years. As a result of this, now five year old children can go to school. This reformation can’t stop demographic falls. During the recent years the number of first-grade students has gone down. Several years ago the number of first grade children in Armenia covered 40.000, but now it is less than 39.000. This information is official and may not be true. It is difficult to find out which children of which year enroll in the first grade. Instead, we can add the number of children that were born during the last four years and thus figure out the number of children going to the first grade four years long in six years. After doing this simple calculation we can see that each year 5.000 more children enter schools than the official number of children in our country. This means that in spite of the high level of migration and child death in our country, the number of students in Armenia is more than the number of children generally. Recently, the government does not discuss its “optimal reformation” policy. Just before the resignation of former minister of education Sergo Yeritsyan demographic official data proved that the mentioned policy did not function. It turned out that during the previous year the number of pupils had “increased” rapidly in the country. The number of second grade children in 2004-2005 covered 39.500, but the next year the number of fourth grade students covered 40.000, i.e. there were 500 more students. Just the same way the number of students of other grades increased as well. The only logical assumption is the idea that there was a huge immigration in our country last year. It is strange, but the mentioned immigration is not written in any official statistics. Hardly anyone may believe this tale, of course if they are not a governmental official.
Usually people believe the information about Armenia’s demography. In other words, all citizens believed the population census in our country as of 2001. After publishing the mentioned demographic information there were some revisions in the overstated numbers of school children, but the mentioned fact didn’t change anything; in just a couple of years the situation changed again and schools started showing overstated numbers of children again.
We should confess that these overstated demographic marks are in the interests of all groups of our society. Thus, the ministry of education receives more money for distributing them among schools. As a result, schools can hide the results of the “optimal reformation” policy. The policy aimed towards totally cutting the number of teachers in our country is being resisted and covered successfully. In other words, everyone is satisfied. Both the government and the society think that there are democratic tendencies in our country. In spite of that, demographic data is not statistical. In this case people don’t believe overstated marks and information and later they will be punished strictly for their policy.