Aghasi Tadevosyan Policies Directed to the Improvement of Post-Crises Situation of Poor and Socially Vulnerable Sectors’ Human Development in Armenia
This research is very policy-oriented from the outset aiming to formulate a concrete policy design as a response for the government’s 2010 call for development of poverty reduction short-term programs. While attempting to identify the possible effects of the 2008 economic crisis on accessibility of education and health services for poor and vulnerable groups, Aghasi Tadevosyan, a visiting professor at Yerevan State University and a senior researcher at the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography, asserts that the abrupt decrease in economic growth makes the implementation of the Sustainable Development Program implausible. Given the fact that the Armenian government does not have an appropriate short-term strategy to address this issue during unstable economic phases, the fellow intends to develop feasible accessibility improvement mechanisms based on focus group discussions, expert interviews and analysis of such documents as SDP, Anti-crises Program of Armenian Government, 2009-2012 Mid-term Programs, MDG, etc. Revealing the influence of the financial crisis on educational and health problems of poor and vulnerable sections of the society and identifying the independent variables influencing accessibility, the study aims to provide evidence-based recommendations to the SDP administrative bodies, the Ministry of Economy and Development, International Organizations involved in the process of SDP revision.
Vilen Khachatryan The Economic Crisis and its Effects on Armenia: Social Impact
The fellow currently works at the Economics Institute of NAS and is the Lecturer of Public Finance Management and Government Regulation of Economy at YSU. Vilen aims to assess the adverse impact of crisis on Armenia’s competitiveness in terms of magnitude of changes in direct and intermediate measures of competitiveness. Assessing both direct and derived impacts of the currency crisis, the fellow intends to identify the areas that were hit the most and introduce a socio-economic policy option that would curb the negative effects. Policy recommendations are going to be derived from a comprehensive analysis of Asian countries that managed to strengthen the resilience of their economy.
Avetik Mejlumyan Labor Rights Protection Mechanisms in Armenia: the Current Situation and the Ways of Improvement
Avetik Mejlumyan, lecturer at the department of sociology of Yerevan State University, raises a critical question in his research paper regarding the absence of a meaningful labor right movement in the country. Given the fact that the employment and work-related policies do not substantially address the existing challenges, the fellow asserts that the embedded labor rights protection mechanisms in the RA are highly inefficient. Mejlumyan’s underlying assumption is that movements advocating for various labor rights drastically differ from movements in defense of the right to work. According to the fellow, absence or lack of work is essentially a structural problem that should have generated an active social movement by now. This research focuses on the analysis of eight hypotheses that could potentially explain factual absence of a labor movement in the country.
Lusine Karamyan LGBTQ Community Issue in Armenia: Public Awareness and Discrimination Attitudes towards Sexual Minorities
Lusine Karamyan, a lecturer at the Yerevan State University, Department of Sociology, argues that discrimination against sexual minorities is a pressing issue in Armenia given the lack of information and interest both at a state and public level, as well as complete unawareness of the rights and needs of LGBTQ persons. According to the fellow, since there is no unequivocal information on the needs and lifestyle of LGBTQ community, the society’s negative attitude maintains creating sufficient grounds for marginalization and stigmatization. Karamyan intends to assess what the appropriate strategies might be for establishment of a tolerant social environment and reinforcement of non-discriminative attitude towards LGBTQ persons. Since the researcher assumes that the level of public awareness is directly correlated with discriminative attitudes, she believes that it is necessary to identify the sources of public information on LGBTQ persons and to measure the social distance. Based on this analysis, Karamyan will outline the critical policy measures needed to address this issue.
Lilit Shakaryan, Anna Pokhsraryan, Astghik Chaloyan Quality Assurance, Labor Market Standards and Higher Education Quality Assesment
Deriving from the current unemployment rate of recent college graduates, Pokhsraryan et al assert that the critical issue of declining market performance of university graduates is not explicitly addressed and evaluated by career centers or quality assurance centers within universities. The fellows point out a fundamental gap between the quality of education and local labor market parameters. Given the complexity of the issue, Pokhsraryan et al focus on the analysis of the experience of Yerevan State University graduates. Their research aims to evaluate the degree of compatibility of the quality of education with labor market standards.
Nvard Manasian Higher Education Qualifications Pendulum Balancing between the Labor Market and Dublin Descriptions: Alumni and Employer Opinion Concerning the Relevance of YSLU Education
Nvard Manasian, head of the Quality Assurance Center at the Yerevan State Linguistic University and TEMPUS expert, intends to unpack the issue of incompatibility of the quality of education with labor market. Manasian argues that employability of graduates to a certain extent depends on the quality of education, and it’s relevance to the labor market. The primary objective of the fellow’s research is to identify the correlation between higher education qualification and labor market demands.