During a May 22 press conference, RA Minister of Diaspora Hranush Hakobyan touched upon the issues facing the Armenian Diaspora, attached importance to the knowledge of the Armenian language and mentioned that the greatest challenge facing the Armenian Diaspora is the lack of knowledge of Armenian.

“Whereas Armenian schools and the parents used to be more zealous for the teaching of Armenian, now they don’t pay much attention, and young Armenians aren’t able to speak in Armenian,” the minister mentioned, adding that the RA Ministry of Diaspora has created 30-40 centers for Armenian language teaching in order to help solve the problem.

The RA Ministry of Diaspora organizes teacher training courses through the “Diaspora” Summer School Program and has provided about 60,000 books to 229 Armenian schools abroad. Teachers of Armenia also host teacher training courses in Armenian communities of the Armenian Diaspora.

“However, we believe Armenians should learn Armenian in the homeland. Just like London is considered the center for the teaching of English, Yerevan must also become the center for the teaching of Armenian. With that purpose, the RA Ministry of Diaspora has created the “Diaspora” Summer School Program at Yerevan State University where nearly 100 Diaspora Armenians learn Western Armenian and Eastern Armenian every year,” Hranush Hakobyan mentioned.