The reaction over the opening of foreign language schools gained quite of a noise – protest actions, articles, press conferences, even a special internet webpage “Against the Change of the Law on Language.”
It is indeed very good that the society is able to raise and support its concern over this process. It is no less good that the social-economic and geopolitical issues are diminished for the sake of opposing the law on language. But in the meantime the reaction and echo over this process is surprising and unclear. Why? Perhaps it would be easier to say when it wouldn’t be surprising. It wouldn’t be surprising if the protest were organized to demonstrate concern over the fact that in the National Assembly the notch of the Armenian language is gradually decreasing from convocation to convocation. Logically, a nation, which is so concerned about its mother language, shouldn’t have elected MPs, who are not able to speak Armenian in a literal way. Or when the votes are rigged they should have protested about that. And it’s no less surprising that among yesterday’s protesters there were people, who are actively advocating for the rights of the sects and homosexuals. The National Assembly avoided an anticipated vote on the proposed legislation on Thursday after two days of heated debates that sparked angry street protests by its most vocal opponents. The vote was postponed until the end of this month. The fierce resistance from not only opposition but some pro-establishment elements forced the Armenian government to water down the bill ahead of the debates. It now makes clear that foreign-language schools can only be private and above the elementary level. It also stipulates that there can be no more than 15 such schools across the country. In addition, they would be required to teach one-third of their subjects in Armenian. Thus, it turns out that it’s beeter to be a Krishnian, homosexual graduate of an Armenian school than a startight Russian speaker man. Thus the last matter is more hazardous for the young generation of Armenia than the first one. Nonetheless, let us mention again that its’ good that the Armenians are concerned about their mother language and it’s good that they are trying to reach out to the government for their concerns. But this encouragement, on the other hand, comes to prove again how vulnerable we consider ourselves. The complaint has become more addressed when the Prime Minister of Armenia Tigran Sargsyan stated at the Bar Camp that the law on the language and education is stipulated by the necessity of allowing the activity of the regents’ school of Thailand and the international school of Dilijan opened by an Armenian descent businessman in Russia Ruben Vardanyan. The thing is that in this school the education is going to be in English. Than an open letter was posted on the internet addressed to the board of custody of the international school of Dilijan with the petition to organize the classes in Armenian. The school to be established by Ruben Vardanyan was mostly introduced to the public as an elite school with English language education. Some information appeared in the media, according to which the tuition would be 22 thousand USD. I think the readers will be interested in certain information about the school (and not only). The teachers will be foreigners and most part of the 600 students will be from abroad. The launch was two months ago and the opening is planned in September 2013. There is no word about the tuition cost yet. Let us remember that Vardanyan already has a successful example of a similar school that he has opened. In Russia he had established the business school Skolkovo. Here as well the education is in English and high-level professionals teach there. The chair of the board of custody is Dmitry Medvedev. Among the members of the custody board are the former Prime Minister of Singapore Li Kuan Yun, the first deputy of the Russian Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, head of the Flagship Ventures Company Nubar Afeyan, former minister of economic development of Russia German Greff, president of the Monitor Group Mark Fuller and many other famous people. The rector of the school is Andrey Volkov. The dean of the school is the world famous marketology expert Vilfrid Vanhonaker. I think it would be additional to speak about the quality of education and the prices are quite high. For example, MBA course with duration of 16 months costs 60 thousand Euros. But it includes lectures by the best professors of business in the world, individual and group trainings, all the necessary textbooks and other items (including notebooks), lodging in the territory of Skolkovo as well as in the countries, where international lectures would take place – China, India, USA, elsewhere. Let us also mention that the school has almost 60 permanent students from various countries of the world and approximately 9000 participants of different programs. Now what? Shall the Russians complain that the tuition costs expensive and that not everybody can afford that? Or shall they become worried that Russian language goes to the second priority? This will hardly happen because they are confident over themselves. But let us come back to the main theme of the article – the international school in Dilijan. This school as such is not a higher education level business school. It will teach children from 13-18 years old and if lucky most part of them will be foreigners. Is this bad? Let us mention that the authors of the letter, which was sent to the board of custody of the school, also confess that the idea is a good one. But they advise to organize the classes in Armenian instead of English. And this becomes unclear. The school loses its meaning. How would you imagine the Georgian to send his kid to Dilijan to receive education in Armenian? Besides that how can the foreign professors teach? And their participation will not only guarantee quality of education but will also exclude corruption cases. However, it turns out that the education in English is so dangerous that it’s better to refuse this idea. “A gradual but irretrievable process will be started, where the parents will prefer the English school with the desire of seeking a more quality education for their children. The graduates of this school will enter the best universities and will be hired for the best jobs; they will occupy leading posts in the private and state sectors. So foreign language speaking elite will be formed,” write the authors of the letter by adding that the rest of the people will follow the precedent of the elite and will desire that their children receive foreign education in order to succeed. “This will drastically decrease the opportunities and reputation of communication ion Armenian and then it may even put into doubt the existence of this language and apparently the existence of the Armenian nation.” It means we are hopeless and the Armenian schools will never provide a quality education. We admit that the Armenian schools will not be able to withstand the competition and everybody, who can afford, will go to foreign schools. But instead of improving the quality of the education in the country, instead of fighting against corruption in schools and foolish textbooks we struggle to get rid of the English schools and banning their emergence in Armenia. At any rate, if we are scared of the existence of 10-15 schools then we confess that the national identification, patriotism and the rest of the key categories are on vulnerable grounds. If we are “pro-foreigners” then the hurdles won’t help for sure.