New Armenian Education Blog

Another new Armenian blog has sprung up and this time the topic is not politics but education. Armenian Higher Education & Sciences has been established by Aryana Petrova, an education consultant and lecturer. The blog should provide a unique insight into the education sector in Armenia and starts the ball rolling with posts on the appointment of Spartak Seyranian as the new education minister.

The newly appointed Minister of Education and Science, Mr. Spartak Seyranian, was born in a modest family in the village of Salda (Akhalkhalak region, Georgia) in 1963. After obtaining his high school diploma at the age of 17 (in USSR primary and secondary education used to last 10 years), he worked as a manual worker at Yeraz automobile factory for almost 2 years. In 1981, he was admitted to the Yerevan State University from which he graduated with a Master’s degree in History.

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It is to be seen if the status of an outsider will help the new Minister implement long overdue reforms at the Ministry of Education and Science (MES); one of the most inefficient and ineffective state administrations in Armenia that has survived the collapse of Soviet Union. Or his lack of credibility and experience in the field of education will oblige him to rely and eventually become dependent on mid-level MES bureaucrats, in which case the Armenian HES will experience yet another period of immobility.