Last year, a competition for the director of the 3rd secondary school of Charentsavan took place, which was quite scandalous. Instead of former director L. Karapetyan, another candidate A. Balyan was elected to this post.
Some of the school teachers and parents organized a strike that lasted about ten days. Even the acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan had to intervene. He visited Charentsavan School No. 3 immediately after the extraordinary parliamentary elections.
During the visit, the Acting Prime Minister stated that everything is in accordance with the law and the nominated candidate will be appointed director of the school.
In this regard, the Acting Minister of Education and Science Arayik Harutyunyan also made a spacious note. In particular, he said:
“It was recorded that the two departments, the Kotayk regional administration and the Ministry of Education and Science have acted in accordance with the law and regulations. It was also noted that from the legal point of view the election of the new director was held in accordance with the law. None of the complaining parties had any complaint regarding the legal aspect of the competition. ”
Competitions for the vacant position of the director are held by the decision of the Government of the Republic of Armenia “On Approval of the Procedure for the Election (appointment) of the State Educational Institution Director (Appendix No. 319-N of March 4, 2010).
This decision stems from the RA Law on Public Education. In the decision, the Government of Armenia made amendments (817-N) on 31 July 2014, which, however, contradict Article 12 (13) of the RA Law on Public Education. “In order to verify the practical management skills of the candidate for the director, the board conducts an interview based on the questionnaires set out by the State Authority for the Public Administration in Education.”
The abovementioned point clearly defines the content of the interviews with the candidates. Paragraph 24 of the RA Government Decree No 319-N dated 4 March 2010, before the amendment, had the following content:
“During the interview, five questions are asked from the questionnaire set out and published by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Armenia to verify the applicant’s practical skills. The candidate choses the questions by lot. The candidate is given up to fifteen minutes for preparing answers to the questions.”
After the amendments and additions in 2014, the following may be found in paragraph 24: “The Board holds an interview during which the applicant is asked questions from the development program submitted by that candidate.”
The editing of such content is directly contradictory with Paragraph 12.13 of the RA Law on Public Education.
Article 40 of the RA Law on Legal Acts –The rules for the solution of legal collaterals– clearly defines:
1. In case of collaterals between norms of the legal acts, the following rules apply: each subsequent rule applies if the previous rule is not applicable:
1) A normative legal act with a higher legal force is applicable.
Thus, we can clearly state that after the changes in 2014 not only the competitions for the vacant position of Director of Charentsavan School No. 3 but also for all other schools were held in violation of Article 12, paragraph 13 of the RA Law on Public Education. It should be noted that after the adoption of the Law on General Education, 12 amendments have been made, but the mentioned point has not been changed.
The current government is actually guided by the anti-legal decisions of the former authorities.
What concerns the issue of the election of the director of the School No. 3 in Charentsavan, there is another remarkable fact. The elected directed director had presented a development plan. However, the concept of the development plan in this case is very debatable because it does not have any measurable results, clear mechanisms, dates, and so on. In addition to all this are quite curious observations of the elected director related to the notion of “parent”.
