Collecting signatures at the Conservatory against plans to move the university to the Academic City

Students of the Yerevan Conservatory started a petition to move the university to the “Academic City” against the Government’s initiative.

In the adjacent part of the 17th district, the executive is planning to build the township, where the main universities will be concentrated in several clusters.

“We started the class at 11 in the morning. As of now, 148 people in just a few hours as just a lecturer [է միացել]”, Ani Ghazaryan, a student of Komitas State Conservatory, told “Freedom”.

In addition to the Conservatory lecturers and students, also lecturers from other universities and citizens join the signature collection.

“If you pay attention to how many people have come to all these tables, we are approaching a thousand people,” said Ani Ghazaryan. They hope that the signature collection will give results. – “Of course, we have high hopes.”

Meanwhile, Komitas State Conservatory lecturer Lilit Martirosyan is skeptical that their initiative can prevent the Government from this intention. But he insists that it should not become a reality, otherwise, according to the lecturer, the normal activities of the university will be disrupted.

Martirosyan emphasizes that the Conservatory with its surroundings is already a separate cultural cluster. – “It’s the Opera House, there are music schools, professional music schools a few steps away, a little further away is a music college – the State Music College, a little further away is the House of Chamber Music, the Armenian Music Society, and so on and so forth. In other words, this was conceived from the beginning as a cultural cluster, as a center providing a cultural aspect and type and appearance and process.

The academic city will consist of 6 directions: educational, arts, technological, classical, medical and officer. Discussions about moving the conservatory intensified when the “Academic City” foundation sent the composition of the working groups forming in the township to the universities. According to that delegation, the Theater, Academy of Fine Arts and several cultural institutions will join the Conservatory in the cluster of arts.

“It can and will paralyze professional music education,” Lilit Martirosyan is sure.

The rector of the Academy of Fine Arts also expressed his opposition to merging with other universities in the academic city. Aram Isabekyan stressed in his Facebook post that it is unclear how this program should be implemented without their consent.

The need to create an academic city, according to the Ministry of Education, arose from the goal of creating a connection between education, research and industry and service provision.

It is not yet clear when it will be fully operational, the Minister of Education mentioned the year 2030. And the representative of the German company that drew up the master plan for the construction of the township mentioned completely different dates a few days ago in Public: 15-20 years.