Monday, 20 December 2010
Tigran Sargsyan elected Chairman of Board of State Pedagogical University after Kh. Abovyan
The academic board of the State Pedagogical University after Kh. Abovyan met today, attended by Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan. The agenda featured election of a chairman for the board
The meeting was chaired by Minister of Education and Science Armen Ashotyan who introduced the procedure to follow in forming the boards of higher educational institutional and proposed candidates for the post.
“Today is a special day as university boards were formed a couple of days ago based on a decision signed by the Prime Minister, and we are now attending the first such election ever held in this university,” Armen Ashotyan said. A 3-member electoral committee was set up in line with the proposals voiced on the spot. Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan and MP Anahit Bakhshyan were named as candidates to this post. Through an open vote, Tigran Sargsyan was elected Board Chairman.
“I feel that the State Pedagogical University’s mission needs to be reassessed,” the Prime Minister said adding that this standpoint was behind the discussion of the issue by the political team and the acknowledgment of the need for policy changes. “The nomination of the Prime Minister to the post of board chairman evidences that the University is kept in focus by the State,” Tigran Sargsyan mentioned. He further noted that the Pedagogical University was picked out by virtue of the Armenian authorities’ enhanced thoughtfulness of this sphere.
According to the Prime Minister, the engineering of a new knowledge-based society should be pivotal to reforms in Armenia. “Economic and political reforms must be started from the educational sphere, since like a nation’s educational network, like the nation itself,” Tigran Sargsyan stated adding that the University stands out against the background of radical reforms.
The symbolic badge of the board chairman of the State Pedagogical University was handed to Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan by the head of the electoral committee Hravard Hacobyan
Thanking for confidence, Tigran Sargsyan touched on educational reform-related issues: “I wish the State Pedagogical University were seen in a more favorable light in the Republic of Armenia so that it had a place of its own on Armenia’s educational map.”
The head of government further stated: “Our reforms tend to create a knowledge-based society in Armenia. This process should be started from the very school as we are living in a quickly changing world. Like teacher, like pupils: this is what Armenia will be like ten years later. If we want to have an idea of what Armenia will be like in some 10-20 years, we should pay a visit to school and see what and which way is taught in there and what is the schoolchildren’s vision of the world. To my mind, this is the task number one of reforms in our country.”
