A civil campaign is gathering momentum in blogs and internet forums to stop the government from allowing the removal of the legal ban on state-funded foreign language schools in Armenia. Critics say the move will diminish the status of the country’s state language, Armenian, and endanger one of the biggest achievements of independence – language sovereignty.

While the government says that allowing a limited number of state schools to teach curricula in a language other than Armenian will only improve the quality of education in Armenia, critics fear that the decision reflects the desire to restore primarily Russian language education, which was banned in Armenia’s state schools in the early 1990s shortly after the country gained independence. By that time, a considerable number of people in Armenia had completed secondary education in Russian, the state language in the former Soviet Union that was required for any successful career.

The number of members of a Facebook campaign “We Are Against Reopening Foreign Language Schools” has exceeded a thousand within a matter of days and continues to grow.

The controversial legislative initiative of the Ministry of Education and Science has been sent to the National Assembly for approval. The discussion of the bill in the legislature is scheduled for next week.

If approved, the changes in the laws “On the Language” and “On General Education” will lead to the opening of 28 foreign language (Russian, English) schools where all subjects will be taught in a foreign language.

Education and Science Minister Armen Ashotyan says the idea would not have been approved by the government if it were a bad one. According to him, the establishment of such schools is simply a necessity, since many turn to him personally to help have their children studying in Russian.

“Why cannot such [foreign language] schools exist in Armenia, especially that they already exist in the region – in Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkey?” said the minister, stressing that by the proposed legislation the number of such schools cannot exceed two percent of the total number of schools in the country.

Armenian Ombudsman Armen Harutyunyan said in a recent interview with RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that anyone has the right to education that would give them sufficient grounds for continuing it on the international level in the future.

“I am for our national school to give that kind of education, but our national school does not give that education. If we had strong education, we would not be afraid of those [proposed] 28 schools. Who was an obstacle to us during these 20 years to reform our education and raise it to the international level?” said Harutyunyan.

Member of the pressure group against the reopening of foreign-language schools in Armenia, journalist Vahan Ishkhanyan considers the reasons given by the education minister and the ombudsman to be ‘racist’.

“Underestimating the Armenian education that gives an Armenian language mentality, they show racism against those who have an Armenian language mentality as they suggest that a person with Armenian education cannot have international contacts. In reality, facts show that many with Armenian education have managed to enter the best universities of the world,” says Ishkhanyan.

In a statement issued by the Ararat Center for Strategic Research its director Armen Ayvazyan points out that the legislation diminishes Article 12 of Armenia’s Constitution by which Armenian is declared to be the state language of the Republic of Armenia, as well as Article 89 according to which the government of Armenia shall implement state policy in the sphere of education and which is now properly reflected in the current law “On the Language”.

Armenia’s opposition Heritage party also issued a statement saying that foreign language schools in Armenia can be only non-state, in a limited number, and be senior schools where Armenian studies, literature and the Armenian people’s history will be mandatory for citizens of Armenia and where education will correspond to the state criteria.

Last week, Armenia’s main opposition alliance, Armenian National Congress, also released a statement castigating the government over the move to introduce the new legislation and saying that the initiative is “a result of provincialism, threatening to put at stake and destroy one of the main achievements of independence – the system of united national school providing general educational.”

Members of the civil campaign against the government initiative also say the opening of foreign language schools is sabotage against the Armenian language and independent statehood.

They also contest the minister’s arguments that foreign language schools provide higher-quality education: “The Armenian language, which has a literary history of a thousand years, is capable of meeting all requirements of the modern-day education system. The quality of education depends not on the language of teaching but on curricula, principles of teaching, skills of specialists and approaches to organization.”

The group suggests implementing a large-scale national program, Translators’ Movement, based on the application of information technologies and translation of world literature to raise the competitiveness of the Armenian language. They say it is particularly necessary to create computer-based and online translator programs, for example Google Translate for the Armenian language, as well as develop Armenian resources online, such as Wikipedia, and other online encyclopedic resources.

Members of the initiative group find that by admitting the failure to solve the problems of the education system and raise the quality of teaching, including of foreign languages in Armenian schools, the minister calls into question his own correspondence to the post.