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On March 16, in the National Assembly the second joint sitting of the RA NA Standing Committee on Science, Education, Culture, Diaspora, Youth and Sport and the AR NA Standing Committee on Science, Education, Culture, Youth and Sport began.

During the two-day sitting the parliamentarians will discuss issues on the strategy of the education development and the directions of the legislative reforms, the protection of the historical-cultural and spiritual values on the territories of Artsakh passed under the control of Azerbaijan because of war, the educational programmes being implemented in the sphere of information technologies in Artsakh.

The Chair of the RA NA Standing Committee on Science, Education, Culture, Diaspora, Youth and Sport Sisak Gabrielyan and the Chair of the AR NA Standing Committee on Science, Education, Culture, Youth and Sport Aram Harutyunyan expressed conviction that the joint second sitting would be effective in the context of detailed discussing the problems of expansion of further cooperation of the committees and profile issues.

The RA Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports Vahram Dumanyan touched upon the strategy of the education development and the directions of the legislative reforms in the spheres of general education, professional and higher education. The Minister assured that the distinct targets of the educational system development were outlined in the document. The provision of the necessary conditions for the revelation of the human potential, the qualified, substantive and competitive education consonant with the national and human values should be on the basis of the educational process.

The RA Deputy Ministries of Education, Science, Culture and Sports Zhanna Andreasyan, Artur Martirosyan and Karen Trchunyan referred to their coordination spheres within the framework of the actions of the draft law on Approving the State Development Programme of the RA Education Until 2030.

The Deputy Ministers detailed the structural peculiarities, the targeted spheres, the action plan of the draft law, spoke about the expecting results and programme principles. In 2030, one of the main targets of the educational sphere is to make accessible the pre-school education for all settlements. The development of the human potential, the attestation and the category mechanisms, the problems of revision of the professions according to regions were related to.

While compiling the educational programmes the MPs highlighted the inclusion of the security component, talked about the events directed to the improvement of the educational subject knowledge and the development of the teachers’ capabilities, the teachers’ compulsory and voluntary attestation process and the encouragement mechanisms.

One of the agenda items was the protection of the historical-cultural and spiritual values on the territories of Artsakh passed under control of Azerbaijan. After 44-day war unleashed by Azerbaijan about 2000 historical-architectural monuments remained on those territories, including about 187 churches, monastery complexes and chapels, numerous monuments of monumental art, cross-stones and tombstones, about more than 52 fortress-castles.

According to the Deputy Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports of Artsakh, we have repeatedly witnessed the occupation policy of Azerbaijan and the revelations of vandalism. Today, Azerbaijan has changed the policy: it tries to erase the trace of the Armenian lithography inscriptions from the historical-architectural monuments. As Lernik Hovhannisyan has assessed, this problem should be not only in the centre of attention of Armenia and Artsakh, but also of the international community, as the historical-cultural heritage with distinct ethnic identity manifestations is on the verge of destruction. The Deputy Minister is convinced that not only the issue of intangible cultural heritage will be paid special attention to: the relevant sub-dialects of the Artsakh dialect are endangered, there are branches of traditional crafts which are peculiar to that region.

The Director of the Cultural Heritage Preservation Foundation Sergey Shahverdyan highlighted the quick collection of the bases of art works and using them for propaganda purposes. He voiced the attempts of Azerbaijan to de-Armenianize the Christian cultural heritage. Azerbaijan attributes this heritage to Aghvan or Orthodox origin.

To the conviction of the RA Deputy Minister of Education and Science Arayik Khzmalyan, today there is a problem of preserving the Christian cultural heritage.

Sisak Gabrielyan touched upon the forthcoming steps regarding the preservation of Armenian cultural values, emphasized the voicing of the issue in contacts with international partners. In this regard, the format of a common platform, which will allow joint work to be carried out more efficiently and quickly was discussed.

The work of the joint sitting of the committees will continue on March 17, at 10:00.