MINISTER OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE ATTACHES IMPORTANCE TO PROCESS OF ACCREDITATION OF INSTITUTES OF HIGHER EDUCATION

Noyan Tapan
Mar 14 2007

YEREVAN, MARCH 14, NOYAN TAPAN. About one dozen of branches
of institutions of higher education of the Russian Federation
functions today in Armenia, but not all of them correspond to adopted
standards. Levon Mkrtchian, the RA Minister of Education and Science
expressed such anxiety at the March 13 meeting with students of
the Yerevan branch of the Moscow State University of Service. The
Minister emphasized in this sense the importance of the process of
accreditation of institutions of higher education, what, in his
words, is the most important and primary stage. "Institutions of
higher education must work out their educational, methodological and
organization programs with the help of well-founded self-examination,"
L.Mkrtchian emphasized.

The Moscow State University of Service Yerevan Branch has functioned
from 2001 and has 5 faculties and more than 800 students at present. As
institution Rector Mushegh Asoyan mentioned all conditions are created
at the institution of higher education to organize the educational
process corresponding to modern standards. He also stated that their
branch was honoured in 2005 in Geneva with a gold medal of the "High
Quality in Business Practice" international fund.

Levon Mkrtchian touched upon introduction of three-degree and credit
system, presented importance of unification of inner-republican
institutions of higher education, creation of institutional consortiums
what creates possibility of students’ free move among local and
foreign institutions of higher education to gather credits in the
direction of this or that speciality.

In the Minister’s words, the next important step to move concomitant
with international educational processes is introduction of continual
educational mechanisms. "Today scientific and economic processes
develop in the world so quickly that specialties proposed two years ago
can already have no demand for the present moment, so it is necessary
to found new structures for re-training and re-qualification,"
L.Mkrtchian mentioned.