Wednesday, 17 November 2010
Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan’s remarks delivered at the meeting with Armenian State Engineering University students
Good afternoon, dear students and colleagues,
I congratulate you all on International Student Day and wish you every success and happiness.
I am glad of your company on this occasion. It is my pleasure to talk to you today and walk over the classrooms which offer vast opportunities for advanced learning. I am happy to see your achievements and the facilities in place for your convenience. We only could dream of such exceptional opportunities: getting online lectures from the USA or information from the best libraries of the world by means of computers.
I wish to touch on some issues which, to my mind, may be of interest to you. First of all, we must understand how much knowledge is valued by us. I have repeatedly taken up this question in my statements. We will not be able to make an asset of knowledge in Armenia and become a competitive nation in the 21st century unless we appreciate those who carry knowledge and learning. Here is the key to our problems and the response to modern challenges.
How much importance is attached to education and learning? The future of our nation is associated with such young people as make a point of learning, who give everything to education and do not dream away the time allowed by God. You must literally absorb every bit of knowledge at this point of your life.
The second problem is to see the way to success. What matters most for you is to have a clear idea of your duties. Do you understand that by wasting time you can generate a serious handicap both for yourself and the country, as a whole, since intellectual resource rather than the mineral one is the strength of any nation in the 21st century? Our State is powerful not with its gold or oil fields, but instead with its intellectual resource. You may know that the knowledge-based branches of economy hold the lion’s share of the GDP in modern States and that industries and services are far behind the production of knowledge.
The third problem is our youth’s vision of the future of Armenia. Today’s discussion may make us understand the following: like youth, like the country’s future. In some 20 or 30 years you will have to make full use of your knowledge and skills to push ahead the country by means of power leverages. For this very reason, I have come around today to listen to your concerns and see which problems need urgent response on the part of my government. From this standpoint, I am open to sincere dialog with you. Congratulating you once again on this nice occasion, I would be happy to answer your queries.
