Train up a child in the way that he should go
And even when he is old he will not depart from it . . .                                 Holy Bible, Proverbs 22:6

I have a friend whose daughter was born with a hearing/speech handicap.

Sorry if the word “handicap” offends you. But in Armenia, any such disability is indeed that. Here, being afflicted means being estranged at best, mocked at worst, and in only the rarest of circumstances, accepted.

Despite having a deficiency, the girl has applied herself to education in a society where “normal” children usually don’t mingle – either in the classroom or the playground – with “other” children.

She has, in fact, excelled. So much so that she has qualified herself for study among “normal” students at a state university. Examiners from the Ministry of Education were astounded at her ability to speak. “One in a million,” they said.

She wants to study psychology, and apply her academic training to help others who are hard of hearing or endure other challenges that most often cause them to be excluded from this society. The need for such specialists is great and the fact that she would choose the work commendable.

In “normal” countries, she would likely find websites full of grants or scholarships at the ready to support bright young adults such as her. But in this handicapped country . . .

The entrance committee at one of Armenia’s state universities is demanding that the child’s parents pay them a $2,000 bribe to assure that the girl gets in. Of course they don’t call it a bribe. To them, it is a “magharitch” – an honored Armenian tradition in which the bearer of good news is given a gift by those to whom the news is delivered.

Here’s the news of this magharitch: Armenians have no right to hate the Turks for what they did in 1915-18 if, in 2008, such unacceptable shadow policy is allowed to continue – perpetuated by Armenians themselves – as a genocide of conscience against its future generations.

The Ministry of Education has said that – as a “special needs” case – the girl can attend the university for free, if she makes at least a ‘4’ (out of 5) on her entry exams. But what the university entry committee has said is that unless the parents pay them $2,000, the girl will not be admitted, even if she scores 5.

My friend, the girl’s mother, works as a nanny. With her humble means, she has put away money for her daughter’s studies. Her son is now serving in the Army in Karabakh. (And, by the way: She was told that if she’d pay $1,000 to certain officers, the boy would be stationed somewhere closer to home.)

The mother is in the inevitable position of having to weigh the cost of morality against the cost of her child’s future.

Simply: The cost of the girl’s future is a $2,000 bribe. If it isn’t paid to the examination board, she doesn’t get to attend university.

Had she not been granted an exemption by the Ministry of Education, the cost would be $900 per year. The board says that the parents should be grateful to pay the $2,000 as a “magharitch”; rather than having to pay $3,600 over the next four years.

What a choice, for a family that has been told – by a state ministry – that their daughter can get a free education if her grades are good. Which they are.

My friend asked the entrance committee if she could pay them $1,000 now and $1,000 later.

“This is not a bazaar,” they told her, saying that the full payment was due on examination. Told her, too, that 28 students were applying for entry to the same department as her daughter and that only 10 would be chosen. The message is as clear as “first come, first served”: Those who pay bribes get in. Others don’t.

So my friend has pawned her jewelry to collect enough money to bribe her handicapped daughter’s way into university so that the child can study to help others while her brother defends this “great nation” in Karabakh.

Indeed, not a bazaar. But a bizarre system and one that hardly inspires hope.