“Decision to close school is intentional”
The school after Aghas Ayvazyan in Yerevan is on the verge of closure according to a decision taken by the Ministry of Education and Science. The ministry's decision to suspend the school's licensing comes after subsequent inspections showing violations at the school, but school principal Greta Verdyan says the decision is intentional.
According to her, the crude violations are that the school lacks physical education and geography teachers, the gym is not equipped with adequate equipment, there is no classroom for military preparation lessons and the school lacks a cash register.
"These demands are not set for other schools and can't be named crude violations. They are flaws that can be fixed," the principal told "A1+".
The principal and the teachers say the only reason for closing their school is that the ministry doesn't tolerate alternative education. The students of Aghasi Ayvazyan School study 4 languages, are introduced to biology and chemistry and teachers show individual approach to each of them.
The ministry finds that children are incapable of perceiving that much knowledge at that age and that the school's curriculum doesn't correspond to the ministry's curriculum.
"An alternative school like ours deserves attention. However, the ministry doesn't want to pay attention. Their only wish is to dictate," says Greta Verdyan.
The school's Armenian language and literature teacher Karine Nersisyan says according to public school curricula, children should be taught such subjects at an early age.
"They should be taught such subjects starting from the 4th or 5th grade. This is the difference, but not a violation. If there is any change and we don't see the children's development, the parents will give a bad evaluation and won't bring their children here anymore," says the teacher, adding that parents won't pay nearly 250,000 drams a year to bring their children to a school where the children are overloaded for no reason.
The teachers hope that the ministry will reconsider its decision and accept the fact that a special school has the right to function alongside a foreign language school.
