“Luys” leaves many issues in the dark
Lawyer Gayane Melkomyan is one of the many students who have appealed to the "Luys" Fund for government assistance. She says that she found out about "Luys" from Internet forums and sent her documents to the fund immediately. "I was lucky to have already known that I had been accepted to the University of McGilley. There were some errors with my documents and I sent a couple of extra documents, but they are usually needed," said Gayane to "A1+".
The "Luys" Fund, which provides government assistance to Armenian students accepted to high-profile foreign universities, launched its website in mid-May and although it is stated that the deadline for applications for scholarships is June 19, Armenian students complain that the deadline is too short because most of them have not finished handing in their documents to the universities.
Gevorg Avetikyan, student at the Central European University of Hungary, says that "Luys" doesn't really do anything in particular. "Even copies of applications are not fully ready," says Avetikyan, adding that he no longer has expectations.
Armenian Studies expert at the University of Michigan Vahe Sahakyan has applied to the "Luys" fund three times recently. ‘I was surprised to find out that the "Luys" fund is sponsoring the concert by Jethro Tull in Yerevan and I wrote to the director. I sent my second letter via e-mail to find out why the University of Michigan was not included in their list for tuition assistance," says Sahakyan.
Let us mention that the fund's website doesn't mention anything about the fund's charter, the Board of Trustees, the contest or the granting of scholarships. The only thing that is clear is that the government has granted 1.2 million dollars to the fund and that the fund director is Jacklin Karaasanyan. We tried to find out information by e-mailing the fund, yet no reply. We then tried to get information from the RA Ministry of Education and Science and they told us that they had no information and we had to ask the fund representatives.
