Former Armenian university official alleges systemic political corruption in higher education
A former senior official at Yerevan Brusov State University has claimed that systemic political corruption has taken hold of the country’s higher education sector on an unprecedented scale.
Speaking to Panorama.am on the sidelines of a workshop organised by the AntiCor anti-corruption platform on Wednesday, Tsolak Hakobyan, former vice-rector of Brusov State University, said that the level and nature of corruption currently affecting universities had “never existed before.”
“The corruption we are seeing today in higher education—this systemic, political corruption that has permeated universities—has never existed,” Hakobyan said.
As an example, he described a case in which a rector was legally elected by a university board, only for the decision to be overturned following pressure from ministry officials.
According to Hakobyan, members of the board were summoned to the ministry and pressured to resign, after which the board was dissolved. He alleged that, under Armenia’s Law on Foundations, a temporary three-member board was then established, which went on to appoint a rector who had not been selected through an open competition.
“This is a typical manifestation of political corruption,” Hakobyan said, adding that similar practices had been applied in several universities.
