“Number of Diaspora Armenian students diminishing”

“The number of Diaspora Armenian children in Armenian schools is diminishing,” stated Hratch Tadevosyan, head of the education ministry’s department of Diaspora education, at a meeting with journalists. “Diaspora Armenian children will have problems in the future, as their culture and education differs from other citizens,” he added.

Tadevosyan stresses that the problem is current. “It is necessary to develop a unified program for these schools, which will contain educational materials, teaching methods, and textbooks,” he said, adding that all this is on the agenda. There are now eight textbooks foreseen for use by Diaspora Armenian students.

According to his statistics, there are now 150 schools, which give classes one day a week, operating in different countries of the Armenian Diaspora, and this number is increasing. The speaker noted that the education of Diaspora Armenian youth is the foundation of maintaining Armenianism, adding sadly that there are many countries in which Armenian youth cannot speak Armenian at all.