The importance of internal potential
Editorial
Yerkir/am
September 17, 2004
It is no secret that a significant portion of people with higher or
professional education in Armenia are poor. This adversely affects the
development of the country. The potential of qualified human resources
that can contributeto the development of the country is not realized.
A situation has emerged in which the professional and education level
of the individual do not guarantee his/her access to income generation
or regeneration opportunities. Consequently, the value of professional
and higher education for the younger generations is reduced and
Armenia will sooner or later be unable to ensure adequate qualitative
characteristics of its human resources.
The impossibility of achieving material results based on the
individual’s professional abilities and education background has
reduced the demand for quality education. This has had a negative
impact on the level of professionalism of university
professors. Teaching at the university is not considered to be a
profitable job and does not attract highly qualified professionals,
especially younger scientists.
This results in a drastic deterioration of the quality of university
education. The opportunities for getting quality higher education in
Armenia are decreased year by year. This causes a brain drain to the
educational institutions abroad.
The Armenian students who study abroad mostly do not return to the
country. In this situation, administrative methods will not help. The
only solution is to undertake measures necessary to ensure the quality
standards for the higher education system including creating
opportunities for the professional realization of qualified
specialists in the sphere.
It should be noted that in Armenia the problem is not the absence of
qualified human resources, as some high-ranked officials try to
assure. Theproblem is the lack of opportunities for realization of the
qualified professionals’ potential. This is why people leave the
country or prefer self-employment or unemployment to the miserable
salaries offered in the labor market.
The emergence of a labor market where qualified human resources are in
demand should be considered an issue of strategic importance since it
can contribute to the reduction of poverty, prevention of emigration
and emergence of social demand for raising education standards. This
is the only way of attracting highly qualified specialists into the
education system.