Armenia has seen regress in almost all fields over 30-year  independence period - scholar 

ArmInfo. Today we are witnessing the degradation of everything that was developed over 70 years of Soviet power. It was initially assumed that independent Armenia,  relying on the potential of the Soviet period, would leap forward and  achieve powerful development. However, practice has shown that over  30 years of independence we have experienced significant regression  in almost all areas.

Doctor of Sociology, Professor, Academician of  the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia Gevorg  Poghosyan stated this in an interview with ArmInfo , commenting on  the new draft law "On Higher Education and Science". 

According to him, such large-scale projects require complex, lengthy  and comprehensive discussions with the participation of academic  institutions and universities. "In the appeal of the Presidium of the  Academy of Sciences to the Ministry, it was clearly stated that if  the government, in particular our Ministry, really has positive goals  - the development of science and support of education - this requires  serious development and discussion with the university and academic  community. Otherwise, there is a suspicion that the purpose of the  bill is not to help science and education, but to implement a  program, possibly long planned and financed by foreign grants,"  Pogosyan explained.

In addition, the academician noted that more than 25 comments from  the Presidium of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers and  lawyers were submitted to the draft law. In his opinion, the new law  will effectively deprive the academy of many functions, transferring  the institutes to the management of officials from the Ministry of  Education, Culture, Science and Sports. "The draft law states that  the transfer is temporary, after which the institutes will most  likely be disbanded or merged with universities. The law is not fully  developed: in one place it says that the academy will function as a  foundation, and in another - that it is an independent institution.  There are many contradictions, and we are talking about the abolition  of the two-stage system of academic titles - from candidate of  sciences and doctor of sciences to the transition only to PhD," the  academician notes.

At the same time, he emphasizes that serious comments on the bill  concerning its content and internal inconsistencies are ignored by  the Ministry. This confirms that the department has simply received  instructions to push through this legislation at any cost.

In this regard, Pogosyan believes it is necessary to suspend the  implementation of the bill and involve the scientific and teaching  community, including university professors, in its discussion. He is  confident that science and education need to be improved, but it  should not be done clumsily, but thoughtfully, taking into account  foreign experience.

"The problem is that it is not specialists in this field who are  involved in the development of very serious, fateful bills, but  rather employees of the apparatus who are not professionals in these  rather complex issues," the academician notes.

Pogosyan also warns that the adoption of such a law could lead to the  loss of both academic fundamental and applied science, which would be  a colossal loss for the country. "This will entail demographic  degradation, migration flows and the loss of scientific and  production potential. Ultimately, such consequences may have a  negative impact on both the people and the country's authorities.  Therefore, neither the population nor the state can be interested in  this," the academician said.

In this regard, he recalled that the idea of merging academic  institutes with universities is not new. There are examples of  countries such as Georgia, Kazakhstan and the Baltic States, where  academies were transformed into foundations and public organizations,  which led to the loss of scientific potential. After the collapse of  the Soviet Union, the question of whether "small" Armenia needs big  science was raised repeatedly. Ministries and the government from  time to time considered the possibility of abolishing the Academy, as  happened in some post-Soviet countries.

"In these countries, fundamental science, which existed in Soviet  times, has already disappeared. The idea is not new, but its  implementation through artificial thoughtless imposition of foreign  traditions shows that this leads to the destruction of local  production, a decrease in the number of people wishing to obtain  higher education and the degradation of science. As a result, the  country can turn into the so-called "banana republic" - a country  with a weak industry, economy and lack of scientific potential. If  this is beneficial to someone, then it is certainly not the people,  not the intelligentsia and not the scientific community. If this  process continues, it will lead to the disappearance of fundamental  sciences. By the way, Soviet Armenia commanded respect both within  the country and abroad due to the high level of its fundamental  science. I do not know who needs this, but the process is going in  this direction and has been going on for a long time," Poghosyan  noted.

According to him, already in the 90s the chain linking fundamental  science, applied science and production economics was broken. "Almost  all industry institutes were liquidated," Pogosyan added. In this  regard, the academician expressed the opinion that the idea of  merging academic institutes with universities is not a solution to  problems, but a utilitarian and simple commercial goal: to free up  the buildings of the Academy of Sciences for sale to private  business. "Already today, about 40% of our scientists teach at  different universities. The process of integrating academic science  has been going on for a long time, teachers from universities work  part-time at the academy. And there is no need to them into  one pile," added Gevorg Pogosyan.

He also emphasized that these processes resulted in an outflow of  teachers. "In Soviet times, the Academy had about 7,000 employees,  now there are 3,500. Half of the potential has already been lost.  This process was two-stage: in the early 90s, there was an external  wave of emigration of scientists to other countries and an internal  wave - the transition of scientists to completely different spheres  of the economy, such as the banking sector and private business.  Double migration reduced the scientific potential of the Academy.  If  the law under discussion is adopted, this will lead to an even  greater outflow of scientists and to a complete loss of academic  science," the academician concluded.

According to the presented draft law "On Higher Education and  Science", Armenia plans to establish new standards for quality  control of education, introduce a new model of licensing and  accreditation of higher education institutions, and replace the  vertical model of university management with a horizontal one. It is  envisaged that in practice, several levels of management and  regulation of the activities of universities will become independent.  Touching upon scientific organizations and the National Academy of  Sciences, it was noted that, according to the proposed innovation,  the NAS will become a fund managed on the principle of autonomy. The  main provisions of the new draft law were discussed at a meeting  recently held by the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia, Nikol  Pashinyan, who has an unfinished higher education.