RA Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan chaired a consultation during which the main provisions of the draft law “On Higher Education and Science” were discussed.

RA Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports Zhanna Andreasyan and Chairman of the Higher Education and Science Committee Sargis Hayotsyan attended the meeting.

The Chairman of the Committee outlined the key aspects of the draft, noting that new quality control standards, namely licensing and accreditation - will be established. According to him, the vertical model of university management will be replaced by a horizontal one, where in practice there will be several independent links of management and regulation. A separate article of the law will define the regulatory framework for the Academic City, etc.

Regarding the scientific organizations and the National Academy of Sciences, the proposed new regulations specify that the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) will be transformed into a foundation governed by the principle of autonomy.

The meeting addressed new licensing terms, university program accreditation, funding mechanisms, and various proposals.

Within the scope of funding state universities under the education development state program, the Prime Minister noted that one of the key principles is that students with a certain academic performance should not be excluded from the university due to financial issues. “Our political principle is that social discrimination should be excluded in education,” added Nikol Pashinyan.

The Prime Minister thanked for the productive discussion and instructed to include the submitted proposals in the draft and submit it for public discussion afterwards.