Armenian students looking for Turkish exchange partners

Armenian students looking for Turkish exchange partners

Monday, October 25, 2010

VERCİHAN ZİFLİOĞLU

YEREVAN – Hürriyet Daily News

The Mkhitar Sebastaci Education Complex, an experimental school close to Yerevan, is looking for Turkish counterparts to participate in an exchange that would help destroy the walls between the two neighbors. The school’s principal, former Education Minister Ashot Bleyan, says ending prejudice would be the project’s main goal

The Armenian school complex provides education in many different areas, from journalism to modern arts.

An educational institute on the outskirts of Yerevan looking to build bridges with Armenia’s often hostile neighbors is hoping to develop new linkages with a sister school in Turkey.

“I don’t want my children to grow up to be prejudiced individuals. They should be modern individuals looking toward the future without denying the past. And the best way is connection. Connections at early ages will remove prejudices and set the ground for friendship, not animosity,” Ashot Bleyan, the principal of the Mkhitar Sebastaci Education Complex, told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review during a recent visit.

Seeking to grant students the right to speak their minds rather than defer reflexively to authority, the complex provides education in many different areas, from journalism to modern arts, from sculpture to sports and from radio technology to science. Its programs extend from preschool to postsecondary and adult education.

As part of Bleyan’s drive to mold a new generation free from prejudices, the students have already conducted exchanges with two other countries with whom Armenia has had difficult relations in recent years: Azerbaijan and Georgia.


The students met with Azeri and Georgian counterparts last year and still remain in touch with them, said Bleyan, a former education minister in the 1990s and the chairman of the Nor Ughi (True Path) Party who became Mkhitar Sebastaci’s principal after being released from prison for corruption charges in 2001.

“The students met their Georgian and Azeri peers for one-week periods. They still keep in touch. As soon as they have an opportunity, they want to get together again. It is nice to see this,” he said.

Now, however, Bleyan’s biggest goal is to find a sister school from Turkey so that he can both send his students there for a taste of Turkey before bringing Turkish students to Armenia.

A different type of school

“We aim for our children to become individuals who freely express themselves and who have self-confidence,” said Bleyan. “The oppressive and patronizing education system is dead. We are teaching our students here to have respect for human rights, to have self-confidence and to express themselves freely.”


In this, Bleyan said he considered Mkhitar Sebastici, which was named for a 17th century Armenian scholar that established the Mkhitarian order in Venice, as more than a mere school. “This place is not a school. It is an education village. This is our small village.”


With most of the students coming from backgrounds with limited financial means, many said it was quite exceptional for them to receive an education at such an institution.

The school, which covers thousands of square meters, consists of modern buildings equipped with state-of-the-art technology while the walls are decorated by the works of students from the painting and sculpture department.

Unlike some schools, the classroom doors at Mkhitar Sebastici are wide open, revealing some students sculpting and others reading. The school further has dedicated amateur journalists, radio programmers and multimedia students, with students managing to post information on the Daily News’ visit, videos and interview with Belyan online within half an hour of the event.

Questions about Turkey reflect curiosity

The visit also revealed a deep fascination with Turkey, with a number of students wondering how they would be received in the country.

“What if I visit Turkey and say that I am an Armenian, how would they treat us?” asked Ardag, a cameraman.

Meanwhile, in the computer science section, students prepared a special design consisting of Turkish and Armenian flags on computer screens in honor of the Daily News’ visit to the campus.