Students Will Not Have Textbooks for Another Two Months: Extraordinary Situation

This academic year has started with a scandal. The Ministry of Education and other sectors has failed to print the textbooks intended for school-age children. Many students in Armenian schools boycotted classes yesterday, stating that there are no textbooks and that they would "skip classes." This was reported by the daily newspaper ‘Zhoghovurd’.

The Ministry of Education and Science was supposed to conduct a competition in November of last year, but the competitions were postponed due to a lack of sufficient applications. Moreover, the ministry has not acted with the necessary diligence, which is why the academic year began without textbooks.

The ministry clarified to the newspaper that the books are available in electronic form on the website of the ministry and the National Center for Educational Technologies (NCTE). Schools have been urged to print the books and distribute them to children until the printed copies are available. According to the ministry, this situation will last at least 2 months during which the books will be printed and distributed to schools.

In many schools, students have been told that they can purchase the textbooks sooner from stores like “Zangak” until they arrive at school. Parents who contacted the newspaper stated that in some schools, electronic books were given to parents with instructions to print them so that their children could attend school. On the eve of September 1, parents' meetings were called in schools where parents were informed that if necessary, textbooks from previous years would be distributed.

Additionally, it should be noted that since January 1, 2023, the Ministry of Education and Science signed a contract worth 9 million 800 thousand drams with “Zangak-97” LLC for the supply of textbooks and other educational materials. A contract worth 360 thousand drams was also signed with “Armine Martirosyan” LLC for the supply of textbooks. Contracts have also been signed with “Filin” for 7 million 700 thousand drams, and “Arevik Publishing” LLC for 1 million 729 thousand drams for acquiring textbooks. The contract for acquiring textbooks in the Braille font was made with “Hayastani Kuyrerin Miavorman Hratarkchut’yun” LLC for 12 million 844 thousand drams.

From a tour of bookstores, it is understood that the books printed with the ministry's financial resources are being sold in bookstores, but are unavailable in schools. The reasons for this discrepancy remain unclear.

From 2018 to 2022, the Ministry of Education and Science spent a total of 4 billion 403 million 612 thousand drams on printing and publishing textbooks. Every year, books have been published and distributed to schools in Armenia and the Diaspora.

The ministry has also stated, “One of the reasons is that we have no experience in textbook creation; such textbooks have not been produced in our country for over 10-15 years, and this is also why we did not receive sufficient applications from our expert community.” Despite the billions of investments made each year, the ministry, disregarding the risks of the program, has introduced and launched new standards for 2nd, 5th, and 7th-grade students that they are unable to implement.

If the books are published in two months, the ministry will probably start talking about the successes of the program; however, what success could there be if the program is already a failure? Meanwhile, Minister Zhanna Andreasyan continues her tenure as Nikol Pashinyan pursues her in all public forums and even participates in events unrelated to her sector whenever there’s a chance to be seen by Pashinyan.

For more details, refer to today’s issue of the newspaper.