Will Armenia shun English?

Opinion: June 2, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

By Hasmik Hambardzumian

Institute for War & Peace Reporting

YEREVAN, Armenia

In an echo of the debate over bilingual education that raged in the United States for years, writers, opposition groups and nationalists are protesting plans to allow Armenian schools to conduct classes in English.

These opponents claim that the move would relegate the Armenian language to second-class status.

“This presents a great danger to the independence of Armenia. Armenian will become a domestic language, and our independence will exist only on paper,” said Vahan Ishkhanyan, an influential blogger and former editor of Ankax newspaper.

Current law requires that Armenian be used in all classroom instructions.

But Ruben Vardanyan, an ethnic Armenian billionaire, wants to change that. Vardanyan has proposed building a major financial center in the town of Dilijan. For his plan to succeed, he needs a large number of workers who are proficient in English.

A bill to allow the use of English in schools has already been introduced in parliament.

Education Minister Armen Ashotyan has promised that only a small number of non-Armenian language schools could be opened under the law.

Compulsory subject

In addition, Armenian would be a compulsory subject even in all-English schools and only children 10 and older would be allowed to enroll in English schools He also stressed that such schools would be privately financed.

“The logic of the law is to give the possibility to investors, organizations or individuals who want to open such schools,” he said.

But those who oppose the bill see another type of logic.

“A slow but irreversible process will start, where parents looking for the best education for their children will prefer instruction in a foreign language. These pupils, receiving a more successful education, will get into the best universities, take the leading positions in the private and public sectors, and form a foreign-language elite, which will at best only know conversational Armenian,” said an open letter by opponents to the principal of a school in Dilijan.

Among groups opposing the initiative are the President’s Public Council and the Union of Writers of Armenia, as well as the opposition parties Heritage and the Armenian National Congress.

Marine Petrosyan, a writer whose work has appeared in numerous literary publications, thinks the government will quickly abandon plans to open foreign-language schools.

Hasmik Hambardzumyan is a reporter in Armenia who writes for The Institute for War & Peace Reporting, a nonprofit organization in London that trains journalists in areas of conflict. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.