From 1 to 10 October, 2019, the “Media Advocate” initiative followed online media reports on the Minister Arayik Harutyunyan’s personality and activities. 35 leading Armenian news agencies have been monitored.
In the specified period, 215 articles were declared, 27 of which were negative, 1 was positive and 187 were neutral.
Minister Arayik Harutyunyan is criticized this time for lacking principles. ASUE students have issued a statement, according to which Diana Galoyan, the new Rector of their University, has copied some parts of her scientific work from the websites of course papers. According to the statement the ministry is trying to hide this fact. Students note that the assertions made by Arayik Harutyunyan that the plagiarism is unacceptable are untrue.
YSU students also tried to submit a proposal in order to get the opportunity of the third retake. They point out that they were dropped out of university because of unawareness. YSU student Patvakan Margaryan noted that he has no retakes and supports his friends. According to Margaryan, Grisha Tamrazyan listened to the students and said that the issue is closed and there is no need to discuss it anymore. According to the students, the ministry does not find solutions to their problems, as they fail to meet the minister.
According to news outlets, when being the responsible of Education Department of YSU, Aram Simonyan was the one who signed Nikol Pashninyan’s dismissal from YSU at the time. According to media reports, this was the reason why Arayik Harutyunyan made great efforts to dismiss Aram Simonyan from the university.
The Draft Law on “Higher Education and Science” has been sent to educational institutions and will soon be presented for public discussion. Former researcher of YPI (Yerevan Physics Institute) Sasun Gevorgyan, referring to the project, considered it a nonsense. The scientific researcher also added: “It turns out that ethics and freedom can be academic… The most fun was the “great idea” of “academic mobility”. When thinking about it, the powerful image of super minister Arayik Harutyunyan emerges. Now I understand why my letters and appeals have been lost, everything was because of “academic mobility”.
In fact, almost all the problems of the multiprofile structure headed by Arayik Harutyunyan are related to the education field.
