New Alarm: Textbooks Written by Husbands, Edited by Wives

Complaints about errors, inaccuracies, and dangerous forgeries found in the new 7th-grade Armenian history textbook continue, with more and more authoritative figures and institutions becoming involved in discussions on the issue. This was reported by Yerkir.am.

Recently, the Mother See, following a discussion led by the Supreme Patriarch and involving renowned figures in the field, stated that the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports should withdraw the aforementioned textbook from use in schools and begin creating a new textbook.

Yerkir.am, constantly monitoring this strategically significant issue, uncovered an interesting fact: the textbook editor, PhD Mariam Karapetyan, is the wife of the same textbook author, Smbat Hovhannisyan. In other words, the husband wrote it, and the wife edited it.

It turns out that this is not an isolated case at the educational foundation called "Participatory School"; the same scenario also occurred with another new textbook for the 7th grade in the subject of "Social Studies," which was also created within the framework of this foundation's project. In this case, both the project director and one of the three co-authors is the same Vahram Soghomonyan, while the textbook editor is Vahram Soghomonyan’s wife, Satenik Mkrtchyan.

In general, the purpose of editing any book, textbook, or other work is to provide the author of the textbook with important observations, suggestions, interventions, corrections, and so on. Serious conflicts may often arise between the author and the editor due to such issues. It is interesting to consider how the women involved in the "Participatory School" project would oppose their beloved husbands, or how author-husbands would receive serious feedback from their editor-wives, if, of course, the women wish to assert a little authority over their husbands.

It should also be noted that the textbook creator-author-husband Vahram Soghomonyan’s editor-wife Satenik Mkrtchyan has close ties with the ideologically significant faction of the not-so-unknown Hranush Kharatyan, was a candidate for the Yerevan City Council from the ruling "My Step" alliance in 2018, and now serves as the director of the "National Center for Educational Development and Innovations" (NCEDI) foundation's "School Nutrition and Children’s Welfare" institution, which is crucial for training teachers and directors. By the way, Vahram Soghomonyan, who served as a board member of the Soros Foundation from 2016-2018, has understandably become a leader in the field of educational "reforms" under the disastrous government of Nikol Pashinyan; he has expressed gratitude on his page to himself and his wife, among other authors and editors, for their "incredible work."

If we consider how much funding has been allocated for these textbooks and how much has been given to the author and editor, the luxury and poverty of this "family business project" will become clear.