RA MINISTRY OF DIASPORA WORKS OUT PROGRAM OF DELIVERY OF TEXTBOOKS AND OTHER LITERATURE TO ARMENIAN SCHOOLS OF DIASPORA

Noyan Tapan
July 1, 2009

YEREVAN, JULY 1, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. The RA Ministry of
Diaspora has worked out and submitted for RA government’s discussion a
Program of Assistance to Solution of Educational Problems of Armenian
Schools of Diaspora: 2010-2012 Program of Delivery of Textbooks,
Manuals, Methodic Materials to Those Schools. As the hayernaysor.am
electronic newspaper was informed by Sirvard Hambarian, the Head of the
Scientific-Educational Programs Subdivision of Ministry’s Department
of All Armenian Programs, under the program it is planned to provide
Armenian schools in the Diaspora with necessary literature: textbooks,
methodic manuals and supplementary materials for 2010-2012 with RA
state budget funds. It is planned to deliver 20 thousand pieces of
literature every year, which amounts to nearly 11m drams. Textbooks’
delivery will be organized by joint forces of the RA Ministry of
Diaspora and RA Ministry of Education and Science. The Ministry of
Diaspora will study the needs of Diaspora’s educational centers,
will sum up the submitted applications and will pass them to the RA
Ministry of Education and Science.

According to S. Hambarian, the program of providing Armenian schools
in Diaspora with textbooks has been implemented by the RA Ministry of
Education and Science since 2002. Program’s current task is to meet
the educational needs of nearly 400 everyday and 700 one-day schools
in more than 30 countries of the Diaspora. The list of literature,
supplementary materials is sent to Armenian communities, Diasporan
educational centers for the purpose of providing teaching materials,
on the basis of which the schools mention their demand. The list of
107 titles of literature provided by the RA Ministry of Education and
Science includes textbooks used at Armenia’s comprehensive schools,
methodic literature, manuals, supplementary, didactic materials,
disks, popular scientific literature, children’s encyclopedias,
children’s literature.

Nevertheless, according to S. Hambarian, part of schools working in
the Diaspora badly need educational literature made up in the homeland.

Educational centers of communities making part of the classical
Diaspora, as well as of newly formed communities (South America,
Russian Federation Far Eastern regions, etc.) are in a sad condition,
where one of the primary problems of teaching the Armenian language,
education in the Armenian spirit is the lack of curricula, textbooks,
working copybooks, methodic manuals, supplementary materials.

According to S. Hambarian, free provision of Diaspora’s educational
centers with textbooks should be totalized by organization of
delivery to Armenian communities. Delivery of literature provided by
Armenia has been done by means of the RA Foreign Ministry so far, but
there are difficulties in that issue due to diplomatic post weight
limitations. Meanwhile not all areas populated with a great number
of Armenians or areas having Armenian schools have RA diplomatic
representations and consular services. Literature is also delivered to
Diaspora’s schools by means of individual representatives of Armenian
organizations of Diaspora visiting Armenia for other purposes,
schools and communities, who take the literature as their personal
luggage and cannot carry literature in large volumes. According
to S. Hambarian, the way of solving the problem is organization of
delivery of literature provided free of charge to Armenian educational
centers by Armenia with state resources.