University Leadership Doesn’t Want Changes
Karine Ionesyan
17:29 28/03/2013
Story from Lragir.am News:
Head of National Tempus office in Armenia Lana Karlova told Lragir.am
that 54 programs have been implemented in Armenia since 1995. The aim
of the organization is to develop higher education. The proposals
of the organization relating to higher education concern the right
application of the credit system and management in universities.
According to her, universities don’t use the whole potential that
Tempus provides. The first obstacle is the lack of knowledge of
English or Russian, which could help to organize the education for
foreign students. The level of motivation is not high. “People want
to receive salaries, participate in programs and pay visits but they
don’t want to change anything. Several people say something, the rest
sit and listen to them like slaves,” said Lana Karlova.
She underlines that if at least 50% of the leadership of universities
were interested in changes, the situation would be different today.
According to her, they lack the culture of working, team work and
management. People, who are involved in programs very often don’t
even understand what they are supposed to do.
She says that will is necessary for changes. Very often participants
get acquainted with the best educational methods, but they are sure
they can’t change anything. Lana Karlova says that there are cases
when they provided equipment and resources but the program didn’t
reach its aim because no one knew about the program and about how they
could use the resources. Universities lack young staff, they don’t
promote young people into teaching and as a result good specialists
leave the country. In order to avoid this and to ensure that those who
leave will be back we need to create our Armenian-European model with
favorable conditions for education and further research, Ms. Karlova
says. The curricula should be more interesting and practice-oriented,
as well as IT should be used at universities.
Karlova added that Armenia was not ready for the introduction of the
credit system because those who use it should carry its values. Very
often a student coming to Armenia from a foreign university is
obliged to pass the same exam he or she has already passed in a
foreign university. This problem exists in almost all universities.
According to her, lifelong learning may help to develop the university
system because it is not composed of exceptionally young people. Many
bear Soviet values. Students need to have their role too, because we
know that 25% of students are forced to vote for someone fulfilling
others’ will. Everyone sees and speaks, but few fight. What is
happening in Freedom Square is the reflection of the reality. It
is necessary to fight and carry out radical reforms, concluded Lana
Karlova.