PROF. RUBEN MIRZAKHANIAN, RECTOR OF ASPU: “WE MUST DEVELOP ALL THAT HAS BEEN ACCUMULATED OVER THE YEARS”
By Gourgen James Khazhakian
AZG DAILY
12-05-2011
The very first question that we addressed to the newly-elected Rector
of the Armenian State Pedagogical University named after Khachatour
Abovian Ruben Mirzakhanian: What allowed you to raise salaries of
the faculty and personnel up to 40 %?
His answer is: “Fortunately, the higher education establishments in
Armenia today enjoy sufficient independence to allocate available
funds as they deem fit. Priorities of the Rector is another matter.
One Rector may decide to repair and renovate the campus buildings,
another sees construction of a new building as a priority. As for
me, I am convinced that in today’s conditions, when prices for
food, medicines, basic goods are getting higher, the priority for a
Pedagogical University is to pursue a socially-oriented policy, which
dictates a pay rise. Having said that, I must admit, unfortunately,
that even after introducing the pay rise, the level of income of the
faculty and other employees remains low”.
Professor Mirzakhanian added that during November and December 2010
five monthly salaries were paid to every member of the faculty and
every employee of the University, and as of the 1st of March 2011
all Professors who hold the Degree of Doctor of Sciences had their
salaries raised by 40 %, and all the other members of the faculty
and employees had their salaries raised by 10% every month (for four
months in a row). We must note that we are speaking about 1600 persons
employed by the University – from janitors and cleaners to Professors
and the Rector himself. But the Rector points out that each individual
salary is calculated depending on a whole number of factors, such
as possession of a degree, length of service, position, etc, etc,
which is in direct contrast to the Soviet-era “equal” approach.
– Corruption in Armenian colleges and Universities has become a
trite cliche. And even a 40% rise, alas, cannot radically change
the situation…
– Let me answer your question with another question: What factors
determine the rating of a college or a University, its prestige? It
is determined by a) Who teaches at that University and b) Who its
alumni are.
Six months ago only one member of the National Academy of Sciences
was teaching at our University, and today we have six Academicians and
one Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences among our staff;
we often invite, let’s say, “cutting-edge” scientists to lecture here.
I am not inclined to see this approach as a panacea, but I am confident
most people would agree that such most highly qualified members of
the faculty are least susceptible to corruption. And I return to
your assertion that even a 40 % pay rise cannot solve the problem of
corruption – you see, well-qualified lecturers agree to read courses
at our University for many reasons, one of which is financial, and
attractiveness of working here will substantially increase within
this year, I can assure you.
And Rector Mirzakhanian revealed the third component of his
anti-corruption drive – emphasis on making students and their parents
realize that there exists only one way of getting good marks, which
is a “simple” one: to study well and work hard!
– When we were students, it was thought that people choosing to study
at the Pedagogical Institute did so in order to acquire a diploma,
and such applicants were either village school graduates or young
girls wishing to enhance their matrimonial prospects… And as we
are speaking about prestige, let me ask you: what are you as the
newly-elected Rector doing to introduce the so-called prestigious
professions such as law, management, etc?
– We have reached an agreement with the Yerevan State Economics
University (YSEU) to jointly run a program preparing for Master’s
degree in “Education Management”. In accordance with the Bologna
process students will attend courses in economic disciplines at the
SEUA, and in education and psychology studies – at our University,
and we shall have Masters in both of those fields as a result. You see,
any Headmaster must not only be a good educationist, but a good manager
as well. Of course, it is true, today law, economics and management
are considered prestigious. With all due respect to those important
occupations, I would like to ask a rhetorical question: Is not
there today in our small country any surplus of specialists in those
professions, no matter how prestigious the professions in question
might be? I am proud to point out that our University has managed to
preserve capability to prepare teachers of all the subjects taught
at school. But we did not only preserve, we have in fact added a new
course (due to the fact that senior high school is being introduced)
so that teachers for senior high school would have Master’s degrees in
their subjects. Another novelty is introduction of distant-education
courses leading to Master’s degree in the Armenian language and
literature, elementary school teaching and history and law.
Quite recently Editor-in-Chief of the “Komsomolskaya Pravda” newspaper
Vladimir Sungorkin and the well-known political scientist, Director
of the New York branch of the Russian Institute of Democracy and
Cooperation, Professor Andranik Mihranyan lectured at our University.
I think you will agree that such events held systematically will
considerably increase the prestige of our University.
Taking up your remark on the traditionally high proportion of
countryside youths admitted to our University, let me remind you that
Yerevan accounts for about two hundred schools only out of total
1404 schools of the republic, and probability that our graduate,
born and bred in the countryside, will return to work in his native
village is much higher than that of a city youth taking up a teaching
position in a remote corner of the country motivated purely by his
patriotic feelings.
– What is your attitude towards opening of schools in Armenia where
teaching is to be conducted in foreign languages?
– I do not understand the fuss created by that development. My
opinion stems from my own experience – in the 1960s, when my parents,
unlike many others, held the view that schooling in Armenia must be
in the Armenian language, I graduated from school # 114 in Yerevan,
specializing in English, and my children graduated from the same
school. The right for education is one of the ten main human rights,
and the language of schooling is determined by the child’s parents,
not by the state or anybody else, for that matter. There is no doubt
that schools maintained by the state must provide teaching in the
Armenian language, but if somebody decided to open a privately-funded
school with teaching in a foreign language there is absolutely nothing
wrong with that.
– And what about scientific research in the University?
– We are taking part in the preparatory work and soon, together with
the Yerevan Physical Institute, the RA State Committee for Science and
two French Universities we intend to establish a laboratory dedicated
to growing artificial crystals.
With special pride I refer to the fact that today such an established
authority in behavioral sciences as Academician Georgy Brutyan is
reading a course of lectures in psychology at our University. And
we intend to establish an International Institute of Logic and
Argumentation, to be headed by Academician Brutyan.
Great attention is being paid to scientific publications, we have now
4 journals in print. Our journal “Issues of Psychology and Pedagogics”,
Editorial Board of which is chaired by Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan,
who also presides over the Council of the ASPU, has good chances to
become an international publication. I want to emphasize that the
University has accumulated much that is definitely positive, and we
must further develop what we have accumulated.
– We are witnessing noticeable intensification of the international
ties of the ASPU…
– Quite recently two of the leading Ukrainian establishments of
higher education, the Medical Academy and the Pedagogical University
have signed with us an agreement on joint research in the sphere of
dolphins’ influence on human beings, in particular on children with
delayed development problems. You know that we have three special
departments for training teachers for 55 schools for children with
special needs. We have also serious cooperation plans with Finland
(within the World Bank-sponsored educational program), as Finland is
leading the world in educational innovation. We expect that the Finnish
experts will introduce the most progressive methods of teaching suited
for teacher-training curricula.
Seven leading European Universities involved with TACIS and organized
by the British Council are expected to initiate with us a joint program
in the field of Museum Studies, starting in September. And, as I have
already mentioned, a laboratory for growing artificial crystals will
be opened with two French Universities. There are teachers of French
and English from France and the U.S. respectively, who are already
teaching our students thanks to the help from the French University
of Armenia and other French organizations, as well as the US Embassy.
– Let me ask you as an expert on the history of culture and the
former Dean of the Culture Faculty of the ASPU. It is evident that
the level of culture in RA within the last 20 years has plummeted,
in all respects. Don’t you think that the best weapon in the warfare
against aggressive lack of culture is education?
– Yes, indeed! But it is also important not to neglect traditions,
determined by history, people’s mentality and habits.
As a historian I have great respect to Armenia at the time of rein of
Tigran the Great, 95-55 B.C., to the Armenian state of the early and
the late Middle Ages. But let us be honest: What we, Armenians, were
like in the 18th, 19th, 20th centuries? Which city was the center of
the Armenian culture in the last decades of the Russian Empire? Tiflis
(Tbilisi), which could be considered, in a way, an Armenian city,
but it was situated in Georgia, not in Eastern Armenia.
Many of our traditions are rooted in the Soviet period. And here I
deem it possible to point out, that although we in fact were “the most
well-read nation in the world”, we used to have an incredibly low level
of culture, both domestic and industrial. Somewhere in Sweden, perhaps,
people read less, but the level of culture was immeasurably higher.
When I speak of “industrial” culture, in our case, in education,
the level of culture is measured by the teacher’s behavior. And when
you say that in the last 20 years the level of culture has dropped,
I have mixed feelings, as in the USSR the level of the industrial
culture was already low, and now it fell even more. The matter is
that in those years Armenia was a part of a superpower with a highly
developed military-industrial complex (MIC), there were many plants
and R&D establishments which worked for the Soviet MIC. Naturally,
scientists, technicians, even common labourers had to possess a
certain level of the industrial culture imposed by the conditions of
high-technology industrial production.
There is another aspect to the problem of the lowering of the level
of culture in our society. Even in those years when we used to be “the
most well-read nation in the world”, what did our parents aspire to?
Did they dream of us really acquiring knowledge or did they want us
to get a diploma? This, I dare say, “tradition” has transferred itself
to us today. As one MP ironically remarked, “we are the rarest nation
in the world, where parents actually pay for their children NOT to
receive education!” Just think – there is no other nation with such
an attitude!
That is what comes from our “ancient culture” about which we,
Armenians, are so fond of talking, regardless of relevance or
irrelevance of such exclamations.
… I am convinced this will pass. I do not know when, but I am sure
it will pass!