On February 9 students of senior classes of different schools of Yerevan Kentron Administrative District visited RA National Assembly. As regular participants of the NA Open Lesson programme, they got acquainted with the parliament and attended the four-day sittings.
More detailed introduction with the National Assembly and its works took place during the meeting with the NA Speaker Hovik Abrahamyan, which turned into unconstrained talk and lively question and answer session.
The Speaker of the Parliament presented the functions and electoral order, the structure and the activity of the legislative higher body, noting that such contacts were part of the programme to make the National Assembly more transparent.
According to Hovik Abrahamyan, the parliament actively takes part in the process of the statehood building, plays an important role in the settlement of the inner and external issues. In particular, speaking about foreign political issues the NA Speaker touched upon today’s situation of the processes of the Armenian-Turkish relations and the settlement of the NK conflict, noting that the parliament actively used its levers on them for forming objective opinion abroad. In European structures the Armenian delegations actively function, provide necessary information in order the foreign MPs will form true understandings about Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh. Mutual visits, contacts with foreign counterparts are organized. The NA Speaker noted that as a result of agreements reached during the meetings within the framework of his visit to the European Parliament in June last year, MPs representing different factions of the European Parliament visited Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh to get acquainted on the spot with the situation and on the basis of objective information specify and their stances. Visits of the MPs, contacts with counterparts are envisaged, and the opportunities of parliamentary diplomacy are used.
The scope of the issues of the meeting participants was very wide, part of them related to the educational sphere. The question and answer that often turned into debate with the participation of the NA Speaker, teachers and schoolchildren, was a unique revelation to make the parliament a tribune of pluralism, according to the NA Speaker. The NA Speaker’s words that the works of creating Schoolchildren’s Parliament are in the process were on consonant with the atmosphere of the meeting. And the Chairman of the NA Standing Committee on Science, Education, Culture, Youth and Sport Artak Davtyan noted that such meetings, which initiated the NA Speaker, served as an occasion to enrich each other. In response to one of the questions relating to the educational sphere, he said that soon the 2011-2015 Education Development Programme would be debated, on which parliamentary hearings would be held next week. The NA Speaker Hovik Abrahamyan considered expedient to make also participate the teachers, who as immediate participants of educational process, would have opportunity to present their views and observations. The NA Speaker proposed to provide them with necessary materials concerning the debate before the hearings. He said that parliamentary hearings were also envisaged on the school textbooks.
Hovik Abrahamyan expressed willingness to meet with the teachers and discuss their proposals. In the NA Speaker’s words, we shall pay prior attention to the school because it is one of the pillars of our state, as the army.
The traditional end of the regular meeting of the schoolchildren with the NA Speaker was the joint photo in the parliament session hall.
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