–Mr. Bleyan, the MES held  a contest of receiving certificates  for the school headmasters during the last two months. How would you appreciate this, which is its productivity.

– Briefly, the school of “by heart”(memory based school) will have a headmaster corresponding to its demands.You should agree if everything is done in a very consistent and honest way, such people  who are able to memorize much legal information in a very short time, remember it and reproduce conscientiously, will become headmasters. Parallel to the Testing Center of Students’ Knowledge (TCK) appears a knowledge testing system of public schools later, probably, of the directors of other educational institutions, which the Ministry of Education and Science is engaged in. During the recent times, the main conversations about education are around this.

If we add  to this also the establishing system of teachers’ attestation (knowledge test), the extensive  functions of testing of the state inspection of the Ministry of Education as well as the of licensing agency ,then the Ministery of Education consumes all his potential in examining and overseeing the system from top to bottom. What will gain the open society, the developing individual, as a client of new education…

– What injection will have the educational institution acting by the new educational order… In this  stage of reforms, when the content-structural changes are put on the first plan (there come out nets of basic and high schools), it is supposed that the society and the educational system need organizers with new qualifications who are capable, initiative, having a bold program, and are performing managers.Will this be their way to appear in the sphere? Do people, already having the certificates, possess this qualification?

– Does it  turn out to be an aimless and unproductive policy?

– What kind of problem do you put forward, what problem do you solve, what do you want to have as a result? I claim that the system of general education can’t solve the problems of the nearest future with its means: first of all the head, human resources, that is why it is continuously reproducing itself, consuming materialistic and mental resources, limited for development, in the cruel struggle for surviving.  In this way we will not inject qualification to the leaders of the general education.

According to the law about  general education, to the headmasters of the schools are presented  such requirements as higher education, during the last ten years seven years of scientific-pedagogic uninterrupted experience, i.e., the requirements are very strict. And if a conscientious person who memorizes  very well, wins the competitions, gets the management  certificate, later on is elected as a headmaster by the board for five years, what will be changed?

– Many headmasters  complain of the oral stage. Many of them state that all this is a source of corruption, as we know that for being a headmaster how much money is necessary.

I consider it infirm, corrupted from top to bottom, unperspective, misleading the way of all kind of exams, by which first of all the way of potential and independent individuals’ way is closed in this stage of the development of the Armenian society. Such  “potential” people  are  so many, that one makes choice by means of such exams. But this method is a good lesson for the acting headmaster, an ambitious teacher and  a parent.

It is as if their hobby is to examine the children all the time, to check something said by heart, remember, giving test works since first grade up to entrance exams. Come and be examined yourselves, have the same stress, the same failure. The problem of education reformation must become the detection, manifestation and the development of the student, teacher’s and headmaster’s capabilities. And the media will become a powerful means of self education for any individual.

Does the individual put forward such a problem nowadays?

– The individual does it himself. The reality we live in is very changeable. You need a great imagination in order to believe in this reality. Thus, education itself must be a stimulus for the development of the individual’s imagination, making the person capable and active in solving the changing and difficult problems of his life. In the present,we need complete, active and creative individuals. This is the problem which we try to solve in the educational center.

What kind of laws do you develop in the teacher-student relation? The beating teachers who appeared on youtube are the result of  lack of imagination?

– It seems that media was guilty but it opened the curtains saying look at the reality. Don’t we know in which society we live, isn’t the school the part of the society? Only some incidents appear in youtube and the reality is sadder and darker. Media with the help of the teacher and parent can brighten  the shadow of school society, making an open community of it. And the misfortune  of our school system is in its being closed.It seems to the headmaster that the school is  his property that is given to him by the government.He doesn’t accept  the order of society, the  control of it.

-See,the same social discontent  _{was before the 8-th of march,when the six grade pupils had to give 8000 dram.the} ministery was informed about it ,there was a social pressure,however no progress was seen.

-Every time for me as the headmaster of the educational complex is difficult to speak about concrete facts. My state doesn’t let me do so.Why do you  bypass the thing which is not possible to pass by.The teacher first of all solves the problem of self survival.I don’t defend,but what do you demand from a teacher ,to what  do you stimulate them only with 80000 dram salary without perspective ,in such conditions of inflation,which is your right here?The social life the main client of the school and the teacher must be changed.The teacher needs concrete and permanent  socio-governmental support.I’ll bring a concrete example with this purpose.The last decision of  municipality to make the kindergardens free. Even during the soviet period the parents legally paid for the children’s food. The brutal socialism, when the nanny’s salary is 35000 dram, the educator’s salary for whole time is 65000 dram what explanations does it have, whose interest are dominant there. If there are chances, just duplicate the salary of the nanny ,educator and the curator which will somehow solve the problem of dependence from the parent, in order to make a more or less just community of  the preschool institution.

Translated from Armenian by Yanah Abovyan, Liana Asatryan