The RA Minister of Education and Science Armen Ashotyan participated at the conference “Building Integrity in the Field of Higher Education of the Republic of Armenia and Anti-Corruption Fight” in Tsaghkadzor, which is held by the joint initiative of the RA Ministry of Education and Science, EU and European Council. The Office informs that the Minister of Education and Science Armen Ashotyan mentioned in his speech that anti-corruption efforts have a coordinated nature.
“Included in the government’s anti-corruption strategy, the field of education is considered one of the main target areas. The state processes and expects complex projects, based on international experience. There are corruption risks in the educational system and they endanger its efficient functioning, first of all in the terms of the quality, efficiency and accessibility of education. Now a project is being processed for the next three years, and we are trying to involve public bodies, interested organizations and the real beneficiaries of education. This project mainly aims at forming a real social demand of anti-corruption fight in the field of education,”-mentioned Armen Ashotyan and added that the public notions of corruption risks in the field of education are exaggerated: they are more spoken about than they really exist. According to the minister, all social researches indicate that the level of awareness of corruption risks in the field of education surpasses the level of involvement in corruption processes, which at this moment is a serious challenge for the Ministry of Education and Science. “The huge process of reforms which is implemented especially in the field of higher education, cannot achieve success unless the level of corruption risks is reduced,”-mentioned Armen Ashotyan and added that one of the tasks of primary significance is the creation of an Anti-Corruption public front. According to him, another main target of anti-corruption fight in the field of education is the diversification of funding of higher education institutions, where there is no serious progress yet. The other problem is the motivation of learners to get higher education. “Until there are some students who are interested in passing exams by alternative means, who do not recognize the necessity of obtaining knowledge and do not follow the axiomatic truth that in the future the cornerstone of their welfare will be the knowledge, we will have a continuous fight with low efficiency. The involvement of students in the anti-corruption fight is a serious problem, as the greatest power, which can help us to eradicate the corruption more rapidly is first of all students. Of course, we have to accept that the problem is also in legislative deficiencies and shaped traditions, in bad sense, and university management,”-mentioned Armen Ashotyan and added that the reasons of corruption phenomena are multi-component.
He also mentioned that the fight has also secured a certain result, particularly, according to the traditional research of the “Transparency International” Anti-Corruption Center where the corruption level of different countries, among them Armenia, is presented, the field of education has been left out from the “top three” and is not among the three most corrupted fields. “Our final achievement will be when no corruption risks are viewed by the society in the field of education,”-concluded the minister and added that the experience of Western Europe in anti-corruption fight may be useful for Armenia. Ambassador, Head of the EU Delegation to Armenia Piotr Switalski also made a speech at the conference. According to him, the latest research indicates that the corruption in the field of education in Armenia is at a lower level compared to that in the countries of Eurasian Economic Union.
