Learning to learn
A billboard on Yerevan's central Abovyan Street reads: ”Caution: Reading enhances intellectual abilities.” While such messages in public spaces might seem unusual, Armenians have grown accustomed to these reminders.
For several years, Armenia's government has been actively promoting lifelong learning and education across all segments of society. As part of this effort, it has placed such affirmations throughout the country and most recently launched ”Studying is Fashionable”. The government wants this to become a social movement aimed at re-energising education and fostering a culture of continuous learning.
It's high time for an initiative like this: since gaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Armenia's education system has put up with staff shortages, underfunding, and a significant brain drain. While conditions have improved since the turbulent 1990s – when the country struggled to transition from a socialist system to a capitalist market economy – many issues remain.
Because many professionals were trained in the Soviet era, critical and analytical thinking, are still largely absent from Armenia's education system: especially in the humanities and social sciences, subjects are taught in a dogmatic, black-and-white manner, with clear heroes and villains. These clichés and rigid narratives discourage students from critically engaging with texts.
When I first came to the Netherlands for my master's degree – it felt so strange to critically analyse every text we read, even those written by renowned scholars. There, critique and doubt were at the heart of education. In Armenia, however, both in school and university, I was encouraged to just reproduce texts and ideas. The closer my knowledge aligned with the original source, the higher my grades would be.
Its implementation and enforcement remain unclear, and unfortunately, prime minister Nikol Pashinyan's government has launched many half-baked reforms in the past that failed to produce significant results.
However, regardless of the outcome of ”Studying is Fashionable,” Armenians can at least hope that the country's education system is moving in the right direction – paving the way for future improvements and a long-overdue update from Soviet-era practices.