Delegates representing 47 European countries meet in Armenia at a European Higher Education Area summit

YEREVAN—Delegations representing 47 European countries converged on the Karen Demirchian Sports Complex Thuerday to take part in the ministerial summit of the European Higher Education Area and the Fourth Bologna Policy Forum, an effort to reform higher education institutions within a similar framework.

The Ministerial events will bring together 47 EHEA delegations, the European Commission, as well as the Bologna Process consultative members and partners. As a result of the 16 years of intensive work the EHEA became a reality and proved that in this globalized and competitive environment education is the key for sustainable development of the European societies.

Among other issues the 2015 Yerevan Ministerial Conference will attempt to identify the best ways to reinforce the Bologna Process in the future and beyond 2020 and simultaneously strengthen the dialogue within and outside the EHEA.

“I stand by the principle that the EHEA is a platform where the differences of national values and diverse beliefs will facilitate to face the challenges of a new age. The EHEA was and should remain the platform where minorities are integrated members of societies with equal opportunities, and last but not the least that EHEA should be accessible to all who are qualified by ability and attainment to pursue knowledge, understanding and determination to develop democratic societies that we need,” Armenian Minister of Education and Science Armen Ashotyan said.

“Moreover, looking at the map of the EHEA there are still unrecognised territories where people are not exercising the advantages of the European education. This is an important issue since education should be without any discrimination and should provide solutions to the conflicts as a unique tool for the reconciliation and people to people relations,” the Minister added.

President Serzh Sarkisian attended the inaugural event and told the audience that “the Armenian nation has exceptional esteem toward knowledge and education.”

“That is, probably, due to its millennial history, throughout which it had been plundered, pillaged and persecuted, and its very knowledge and centuries-long spiritual and cultural heritage the only value that illuminated its path, and of which it could not have been deprived of. It is no coincidence that during the most difficult days of the Armenian Genocide, Armenians saved books. Otherwise, we would not have the Matenadaran that is the warranty for the eternal existence of the Armenian nation,” Sarkisian said.