"THE PUBLIC EDUCATION’S ACHILLES’ HEEL IS THE TEXTBOOKS’ QUALITY"
Aysor
Nov 10 2009
Armenia
"The Achilles’ heel of the public education is the quality of the
textbooks. The problems are hereditary and can’t b e solved in a
moment. The textbook writing is a continuous action and I have come
across with the textbook quality years before", – Armen Ashotyan the
RA Minister of Science and Education said.
He mentioned that it is hard to have high quality textbooks as we do
not have a formed culture of textbook writing. On the other hand, A.
Ashotyan mentioned that we are a very small country where there are
protection mechanisms for choosing the textbooks, there is no strong
publishing house and that is the most essential the mechanisms of
choosing the books are imperfect.
"We have got a few innovations. We have got 11 announced competitions
for the textbooks and have separated the professorial and pedagogic
commissions. There will be to commissions separated one from another.
The payment will be done only in case of the textbooks being ready
for 100 percents. Only after the corrections the textbook will be
financed for the publication", – announced Armen Ashotyan.
The Minister added that this period should be passed over as the
number of textbook writers is little. Usually one or two books are
presented and the Ministry faces the problem of having a bad textbook
or not having at all: "I would prefer the students for the next year
to study by the old books than to make them study by bad textbooks."