Armenian high school graduates, who have received high scores as a result of joint exams but have not been admitted into a university, as well as their parents are rallying outside the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport in Yerevan. They demand a meeting with Minister Arayik Harutyunyan.
The participants of the rally are holding posters reading, "We demand education", “The voice of young people shall be heard”, and the like.
One of the parents who organized the rally asked the participants to practice social distancing to avoid police warnings. The organizer next entered the ministry building to inform the staff about the protest action and their demand to meet with the minister.
Ofelia Kamavosyan, a public relations officer at the ministry, stepped in to talk to the protesters and, asking them to meet with Deputy Minister Grisha Tamrazyan, however the latter turned down her offer.
"We have stated that we want to meet only with the minister. The applicants' right to education has been trampled and violated, which must be restored," a parent said.
Referring to Arayik Harutyunyan's statement on Sunday that the applicants had been duly notified of the changes in the procedure for filling out the applications before the exams, the protesting parent insisted that the minister had no idea what a proper notice meant.
"A document has not been handed to the applicants, neither has it been sent by post or e-mail. The Assessment and Testing Center has also failed to notify [the applicants]. What proper notification is the minister talking about? He says 57,000 people are following his page, I am sorry but there may be no applicants among those 57,000," the protester stated.
The parent claims the issue failed to be resolved after their meeting with the deputy minister, adding Harutyunyan avoids meeting with them, because he does not know the legal acts.
"Yesterday he went live from his office, if he thinks he is right, let him come out to meet us, we will ask each other questions and you will see that he is not right," he said.
The education minister has called on those school graduates who have not been admitted to a university to apply to a distance learning program, an offer strongly rejected by them.
