Impressions from the Meeting in Moscow Dedicated to Fine Arts Education Issues
Tsovinar Movsisyan, vice-rector of Komitas State Conservatory of Yerevan, and Nune Minasyan, head of the Quality Assurance Center of the State Academy of Fine Arts of Armenia, participated in the meeting of representatives of the CIS countries’ culture and art education sector held in Moscow on April 25-26, 2023. The organizer and coordinator of the meeting was the management of the Russian Music Academy named after Gnesins. Earlier their representatives were in Armenia, performed concerts in the conservatory, and held master classes.
Our representative, Nune Minasyan mentioned the overall impressions from the meetings in Moscow, the warm welcome and the issues she had highlighted in her speech. She referred to the difficulties of the teaching staff, the lack of salaries and, as a result, the outflow of qualified professionals. The unevenness of applicants by professions, when the main demand is in modern professions: computer graphics, design, fashion design. Meanwhile, only one or two apply to the art department, which will lead to a severe lack of specialists. The next issue was connected to the academic hours when the specialty subjects were limited because of compulsory subjects set by the State programme. The issue of fee-based fine arts education was also put on the agenda.
Minasyan mentioned the case of Belarus, where arts education is free of charge and the graduates are appointed to certain jobs upon graduation. The other issue was connected with art management; a sphere that was also unestablished. “Many works of many talented artists remain in the studios because of the lack of professionals who can highlight and introduce their art to the public.”
Next was the issue of ranking of HEIs, then that of awarding the scientific degrees.
Nune Minasyan also referred to one of the problems raised by the vice-rector of the conservatory, Tsovinar Movsisyan, related to the expected changes in the awarding of scientific degrees. “Till now, it was two-level in our case, candidate of sciences and doctor of sciences. According to the latest changes it is envisaged to leave only the last one. In this case, a question arises: will those who previously defended their candidacy be equal to the doctoral level?”
All those and related issues were discussed during the meeting and possible solutions and collaboration were suggested which would be possible in case of the project continuity.
And as for welcome and hospitality, there was no lack of it.
Melanya Badalyan
