Armenia revising higher schools licensing procedure 

ArmInfo. The Armenian government, represented by the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports (MESC), is amending the laws and related legislative acts> to provide in the country, which will be ensured through a new procedure for licensing and accreditation of universities. The decision was made at a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers on May 15.

According to the head of the MESC, Zhanna Andreasyan, over the past  years, higher education has moved away from the research-based  learning agenda and has become a process based mainly on lectures,  often with significant shortcomings in quality and competitiveness.  Since 2005, there has been no transition to the third level of higher  education, no legislative basis for training specialists in  accordance with modern international requirements has been laid, as a  result of which the three-level system of higher education does not  actually function, and the awarding of academic degrees is not  considered part of higher education, but the two-level system of  academic degrees inherited from the USSR is preserved:  postgraduate  and doctoral studies.

From an organizational point of view, scientific activity is  organized mainly in research institutes, without providing any  institutional tools for interaction with the university system. At  the same time, scientific activity is also separated from the  economic sphere, and in fact, the triangle university-science-economy  is broken. Over the years, as well as in the conditions of an  imperfect legal framework and insufficient financial resources, a  certain antagonism has developed between the organizational forms of  the sectors, which currently significantly hinders the convergence  and synergy of the sectors. The eternal separation of the higher  education and science systems remains. 

The sphere of science continues to be divided into strongly disunited  sectors, on the one hand, academic and departmental, on the other -  higher education, which hinders the formation of effective models of  interaction between education and research activities, the  implementation of scientific and educational programs, the attraction  of young qualified potential to higher education institutions and the  scientific sector. Currently, 44 research institutes receive basic  state funding, of which 5 are organizations subordinate to the  Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, 3 to the Ministry of  Economy, and 36 to the National Academy of Sciences. Moreover, the  National Academy of Sciences system operates under its own separate  law, according to which scientific advisory functions are combined  with administrative and financial functions, which creates a de jure  uncontrolled and accountable environment in the system, effectively  limiting competitiveness and participation in organizations. At the  same time, the academic system of organizing science does not allow  for the most efficient allocation of funding. Thus, for every less  than 2 scientific employees involved in the system, there is 1  administrative or support employee involved in parallel.

73% of the main funding allocated to the field of science is directed  to organizations of the NAS system, however, only 32% of publications  in scientific journals indexed in the international scientific  information system Web of Science are published by employees of  organizations of the NAS system.

At the same time, despite the fact that public investments in the  field of science are increasing, there is a serious demographic  problem in the industry, which is manifested in the uncontrollable  reduction in the number of scientific personnel in the age group of  60 years and older, which, in fact, is covered by the number of young  people coming to the field, but which, in fact, is not a change of  generations, since the transfer of knowledge is not of an  institutional nature.

In the Republic of Armenia, 60 organizations have licenses for the  implementation of higher education programs (1 university per 50,000  residents). An analysis of the university system shows that only 6%  of the academic staff employed in the entire system are researchers,  and only 15 universities have at least 1 researcher, which means that  in the remaining 45 universities education is carried out through  teaching methods and research as an integral part of higher education  is completely absent: 51% of the teaching staff of the universities  do not have a degree, 53% of the teachers are full-time employees of  the universities, and 30% of the full-time teachers with a degree are  over 65 years old. In 17 universities, the proportion of part- time  and hourly teaching staff is or exceeds 50%, with a maximum of 99%.

, - the minister  emphasized.

The draft law > proposes to define in a new edition the accreditation of  an institutional or educational program of an educational  organization, a bachelor's qualification, a master's qualification, a  clinical resident (clinical intern),

It is proposed to establish that the specifics of the legal status,  creation, activities, reorganization, management bodies, their  formation and powers, use of property and financial and economic  relations of a higher educational institution are determined by the  Law ,

The draft law proposes to establish that the management bodies of a  state organization or a scientific organization created by the state  implementing educational programs of higher education are formed in  accordance with the Law .

The draft law > proposes to replace the words with the words , and the words with the words , and also to replace the table of types of  activities subject to licensing in section <9. In section  , a number of points are set out in a new  version.

The draft law proposes to replace the words with the words , to replace the words    with the words

In the draft law it is proposed to replace the words with the words , replace the words   with the words , and replace the word   with the word , etc.

, stated Zhanna Andreasyan.