Parliamentary Restrictions Prevented University from Selecting Top Professors, Ruben Hayrapetyan

In response to an official inquiry regarding the violation of laws and the distribution of class hours without a competitive selection of lecturers, the university's unlawful head could only reply that "the competition was not organized due to the restrictions imposed by the commissioner." This was stated by Ruben Hayrapetyan, the former acting rector of the Armenian State University of Economics, on his Facebook page.

It turns out that it was the commissioner who banned the university from selecting the best lecturers. Since August 2019, the teaching staff of the university has been supplemented by about 80 new high-quality specialists, and through large-scale economizing on unnecessary expenditures, the hourly rate was tripled from 1500 to 4500 drams to attract these specialists. However, another 20 lecturers, who were recognized as winners in the competition and were to join, became disillusioned after known incidents and left.

The competition was necessary not only to raise the level of the teaching staff, but it is also a LEGAL REQUIREMENT. According to the RA law on "Higher and Postgraduate Professional Education," signing an employment contract with lecturers must be preceded by an OPEN COMPETITIVE SELECTION.

What is happening now? The old order has completely returned. This year, naturally, no competition has been organized, in violation of the law, and class hours have been distributed at the discretion of the department heads, creating a highly favorable environment for corruption. For example, if lecturer X, who lacks mastery of his subject, offers a large bribe to the department head or is connected with him, the department head has no procedural restrictions whatsoever on accepting that bribe and allocating class hours to him. Conversely, if lecturer Y is a worthy specialist but is undesirable to the department head, there are again no restrictions other than ethical considerations preventing the department head from denying this specialist class hours.

Moreover, I am not even discussing the unlimited power the university rector gains to impose his whims on department heads with a single instruction when no competition is held. I won’t comment on the actual distribution of class hours for this academic year because it is pointless to have any expectations under such conditions.

In response to the official inquiry regarding the violation of the law and the lack of competitive selection for class hours, the university's unlawful head could only state that "no competition was organized due to the restrictions of the commissioner." This is despite the fact that there is not a single restriction from the commissioner preventing the organization of a competition. Furthermore, during the same period, a high-profile competition organized by the rector took place, while students are already attending classes in groups of 50.

When asked precisely which restriction from the commissioner precluded the organization of the competition and fulfillment of legal requirements, the unlawful head naturally refused to answer because such a restriction simply does not exist.

Why am I writing this? Regardless of all disagreements, I am genuinely interested in whether this is what the "revolutionary" minister and deputy minister intended for the university; was this the goal, and will it continue this way, or am I misinterpreting or exaggerating something?