Protest at Armavir College: Lecturers Demand Director's Removal

On September 23, lecturers from the Armavir Regional College held a protest in front of the Ministry of Education and Science. They have been on strike since August 17, demanding the removal of the college director, Angin Arshakyan, and the appointment of an interim official.

"All authorities have been presented with complaints, which are being examined and reviewed; however, no serious decisions have been made to date, disrupting the college's operations. Today we demand a meeting with the minister. An unhealthy atmosphere has been created in the college. Moreover, the director has committed numerous illegalities and financial violations, all of which have been reported to the relevant authorities. In nine months, we have reached a point where the moral and psychological atmosphere has been completely disrupted. They are prepared to personally offend students and degrade everyone," said one of the lecturers.

Head of the Economics Department, Taguhi Hovakimyan, noted that on one hand, the director claims the college is in a difficult situation, while on the other hand, he allocated 800,000 drams from the off-budget fund for installing surveillance cameras, which was unnecessary. "He wants to see who went where, what they brought, what they did. If he had any problem with someone, we had no right to stand and talk to that person; otherwise, we were plotting against him. Our demand is for the ministry to appoint an interim official so we can start classes again and work without him as our leader," she said.

The educators pointed out that the rights of teachers at the educational institution are being violated by the director. "There are issues that all educators should decide on; he makes unilateral decisions, such as changing tuition fees. By law, this should be done by the teacher's council and presented to the management council. We learned about this from the internet, and the decision of the management council was also forged— all signatures were falsified. If we haven't approved it, how did those signatures reach the ministry? Two students from the management council are abroad, the others were at their vacation home, and no one was present at work. We also have a recording that the president of the management council was unaware of this. We have one demand, one request from the minister: to remove our current director as soon as possible and appoint an interim official so that we can exit the strike and the educational process can continue," said another lecturer.

It is noteworthy that Auroranews.am previously addressed the issues raised by the college's teachers. We also contacted the college director, who stated that he removed the pictures to display them in a separate classroom.