Yerevan /Mediamax/. Armenian Minister of Education and Science Arayik Harutyunyan has said that the content of high schools in the country has to change because they are failing to fulfill their main task.

“If high schools provide education of proper quality, the student will not need private tutors to get admitted into university. There are different factors hindering substantive development of high schools in Armenia. In particular, the flawed system of vocational education has a negative impact on establishment, methods, programs and group division in high schools. Whatever the reasons, today we have a situation that parents complain their kids have nothing to do in 12th grade,” Harutyunyan said at the start of Armenian language and literature exam at Yerznkyan High School N118 in Yerevan.

The minister has noted the institute and universities will have plenty of vacant places this academic year because of an unprecedented low number of applicants.

“The year will mark a crisis for the higher education institutions and we must find a solution, which will not be easy. The crisis will haunt the universities for the next six years, because admission of a low number of students will affect the established courses, groups, and professors’ wage rates,” said Harutyunyan.

Touching on complaints over test workbooks, Arayik Harutyunyan has noted that “although this format of assessing knowledge reduces corruption risks, it also prevents from discovering the real scope of student’s abilities”.