In 2000, the information technologies (IT) field was announced the supreme field of economy in Armenia. When talking about Armenia’s natural resources, economic development and comparing Armenia to other regional countries, the Armenian authorities used to say that although Armenia doesn’t have oil, a sea or communications, but it does have rich human resources.
Armenians declared Armenia a country with an IT society and a regional center for IT. But it turns out that not having oil or a sea doesn’t create obstacles for other countries to develop in the field of information technologies. Experts say that Azerbaijan and Georgia are doing better in the application of IT than Armenia. So, how is Armenia doing? –“Badly,” say IT experts.
“First, let’s take education. Education in Armenia is in a terrible situation and not only in the field of informational technologies,” says executive director of the “Information Technologies Companies’ Association” Karen Vartanyan. “There are only 700 graduates for this field each year, but only 150 of them are ready to work; 150 graduates are totally illiterate, while the remaining 400 don’t have enough knowledge. They have to study in order to work. Many young people don’t’ know why they are applying for university admission and why they are choosing the given profession. Is he getting accepted just to get a diploma or to work as a programmer in the future? Besides that, there is no desire or opportunity to prepare good specialists at the universities. Today, parents are ready to pay the amount necessary for their children to receive a higher education. So, funding for education is not only a burden for the government. But the reforms made in the IT field are not sufficient. The level of education in Armenia has not gone up since the Soviet era. But offers from this or that foreign country require a new level of education”.
The quality level of education should not only be raised based on the desire and financing of the student, but also the state. The current universities shouldn’t only set standards-how many students were enrolled that year, how much the tuition was, how much tax the university paid to the state and how many tuition amounts it has collected, but rather, it should think ahead and find out whether or not the graduate can compete against the graduates of any country abroad, or if the diploma that the graduate receives from the given university help him get a job in the future. From this point of view, Armenian universities don’t stand a chance. What’s more, according to experts, in the conditions of “super-production”, the IT companies in Armenia need 1,500 specialists. There is a high need for companies and program directors in Armenia. There are practically no young specialists in this field. The demand is so high that companies “steal” this or that specialist from another company.
“That’s why specialists demand a salary raise. Generally, that’s not a bad thing, but at this point in time, it’s not good for this field. Armenia will become less competitive when it comes down to finding good potential. We don’t need to be “luxurious” right now,” says K. Vartanyan.
After declaring IT as the supreme field of economy of Armenia, the government hasn’t done anything in favor of developing the field. It hasn’t formed a corresponding legislation and strategy, or administrative resources. Experts of the field mostly complain about the conditions of the customs and taxation bodies. They think that there have to be some privileges-the IT companies shouldn’t pay taxes for a limited amount of time and there shouldn’t be much trouble at the customs points when importing technical devices. There are a lot of complains about the strict regime of the customs services and that is the main obstacle for economic development in Armenia. The most important condition for economic development is that the Armenian authorities must decide which path the country has to take to develop-agriculture, tourism, mine production, banking services or the development of the IT field. According to Vartanyan, it’s impossible for all fields of economy to develop at the same time.
“The authorities must have a certain role on which path to take, they must take into consideration what’s going on in the world. I think that there is no alternative, because the development of the IT field will help develop the other fields of economy. I’ll just bring up one number-Armenia falls behind the 90th place in IT application. Even many African countries are currently ahead of Armenia. The authorities of those countries have come up with a plan and are moving forward with that. The amount of time for setting up a plan and moving towards development is 25 years. Let’s recall Singapore. If we go back to the Soviet era, we can recall Estonia, which developed the IT field in only 15 years. I must say that Armenia was the leader in the IT field during the years of the Soviet Union and Estonia was in last place and was considered an agrarian country. Now Estonia is in first place, while Armenia is last on the list. All we need is a straight role, the desire and the willpower to make it.”
This year, the month of September was declared as IT development month in Armenia. There were events and the field experts said that the IT field has developed and the results form 2% of the GDP of Armenia. Of course, this is a significant number, that is, of course, if the GDP had a specific weight. In Armenia’s case, there’s nothing to boast about by the GDP and the 2%. Besides that, when we say IT in Armenia, we mean the plans for radio communicators and the provision of communication. There is practically no production. The computers sold are simply brought to Armenia from other places. The companies don’t import computers, but rather parts of computers so that they will be able to pay a minimum amount of taxes. So, there you have it: that’s the current situation of the field that was declared the supreme field of economy of Armenia.