For Our Government, Overcoming Poverty is a Primary Challenge: Pashinyan

Overcoming poverty is a primary challenge for the government of Armenia, stated Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan during a meeting with representatives of the Armenian community in France. “We have received a historic opportunity to solve this issue in a very short time. Today in Armenia, it is 100% guaranteed that a young person with the appropriate education will find a well-paid job in the IT sector according to Armenian standards. Currently, there are approximately 3,000 to 4,000 vacant positions in the field of information technologies in the Republic of Armenia, and this will continue in the coming days, months, and in the upcoming one or two years, regardless of whether these 4,000 workers appear at this moment,” said the Prime Minister.

Pashinyan emphasized that they see the opportunity not only to take serious steps towards overcoming poverty but also to elevate people's living standards. “Our vision for reforms in the education sector is directly related to this. We are currently examining what changes can be made so that we guide children not only towards overcoming poverty but also immediately towards establishing prosperity. We are reviewing our educational programs to see how we manage class hours and what we can free up that may not have a crucial significance so that we guide children down the path of enhancing physics, mathematics, and technical sciences education, ensuring that once they graduate from school, they receive such higher education that right after, they can step into a prosperous life,” Pashinyan highlighted.

According to him, the main challenge of our educational policy is how to help children become more competitive, be able to take care of their lives, find employment, and not constantly expect that the government, the diaspora, or charitable organizations will provide them with food. “We want to solve the priority issue of creating jobs in our industrial sector, defense industry, and technology sector, because this not only addresses the issue of poverty but also improves our country's security level. Today, we need engineers for two simple reasons: First, an engineer will quickly find a well-paid job in our labor market. Second, that engineer will be able to resolve the tasks that our defense industry will present, which, as a result, will address our country's security level,” the Prime Minister stated.

Pashinyan mentioned that there is a problem here: perhaps, a person may not have enough education to deliver impressive toasts. “But that is a solvable issue, because this problem can also be resolved through self-education during hours free from work and study. I believe many impressive toasts have been created in the last 30 years. We are simply stating that let’s replace the educational system that prepares toastmasters with a system that prepares engineers. We are told, ‘How? Are you acting against our identity?’ We respond, ‘Our identity is a strong, self-confident, militarily, industrially, and economically strong Republic of Armenia.’ This logic is the foundation of our entire political rationale, from domestic to foreign policy. We will go down this path, as we want to instill confidence in our country, our state, and our people in both foreign and domestic policy. We want the reality built around toasts to be replaced with a reality built around the development of creative capacities.

The Prime Minister stressed, “Providing higher education to young people in the Republic of Armenia, who ultimately will not be able to find jobs in Armenia, means condemning them to emigration because if a person has any qualification and can find a job with that qualification not in Armenia but elsewhere, they will leave the country. We want our educational system to prepare specialists who will not only be able to find jobs in Armenia but also affirm their prosperity through that work and, as a result of that work and prosperity, develop an industrial, technological, innovative Armenia. We seek your support on this path—first and foremost moral support. We want Armenia to be a country that doesn’t need to be compassionately supported, we want Armenia to be a country where investments can be made, where people can become wealthy and enrich others. And we are confident that we are heading down this path.”