Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan is asking whether English language is a mandatory subject at the Universities of Harvard and Cambridge. This is what he talked about during his live broadcast on Facebook, touching upon the initiative of the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport to remove Armenian language and literature as subjects from the list of mandatory subjects taught at universities, News.am reports.
“Do the subjects Armenian Language, Armenian History and Armenian Literature need to be mandatory in universities? I am surprised that there are people who have the answer to this question. They even surprisingly ask how such a question can be discussed. Let’s discuss the matter. What is our objective for our universities? We are setting the objective to have our universities become competitive along with the world’s leading universities. Are English language and US history mandatory subjects at the University of Harvard? Are English language and history of Great Britain mandatory subjects at the University of Cambridge?” Pashinyan said, stating that he doesn’t know the answer to these questions either.
According to him, if Armenian universities aren’t going to be able to prepare students the way the University of Harvard does, there is no need to provide universities with funding. “Let’s give those funds to our applicants as grants and tell them to go and study at the University of Oxford since the Armenian government doesn’t have the will to prepare an educational institution at a sufficient level and offer it to others.”
