Armenia: Transformational Peculiarities of the Soviet and Post-Soviet Higher Education System

Abstract

The chapter explores the nature of higher education in post-Soviet Armenia given the factors prevailing in the system—historical, political, socio-economic and international. Of particular interest is the exploration of the higher education system structure reflected by social needs, economic demands and political goals. Supported by a holistic theoretical framework underpinning three angles of analysis—horizontal and vertical diversity, external diversity as well as the organisational interrelationships—the analysis endeavours to reveal the driving forces that shaped post-Soviet Armenian higher education, the inter-influence that occurred as a result of changes taking place at the macro and micro levels of the higher education system as well as the impact of those changes on the performance of the Armenian HE in general. The results of the analysis are two-fold. First, throughout the decades the Armenian higher education has made major strides and evolved from a uniform into a diverse system responding and accommodating the diverse needs of the society. Second, albeit the strong desire and much investment in the system through a diversity of channels to make the system internationally visible, still more investments are to be made to achieve the desirable goal of international visibility while facing the challenges related to the Soviet legacy, current policymaking and implementation methodology, in particular.