Despite promises by the government that no changes will be made in Armenia’s language law, a key parliament committee on Wednesday decided to bring the revised piece of legislation implying such changes to a full session next week.
The National Assembly in June adopted, in the first reading, controversial legal amendments proposed by the government allowing the existence of a limited number of foreign-language schools in Armenia. Those amendments also concerned the law on the language.
The move met protests from public and political circles opposed to the opening of such schools in Armenia and concerned over the “status of the Armenian language”, which led the government to amending the bill twice and still promising that no change would be made in the language law when the package was to be voted on in the second and final reading in autumn.
But in what seems to be a contradiction to that promise, the parliament’s standing committee on science, education, culture, youth fairs and sports decided that changes in the language law would still be in the package to come up at the four-day session on October 25-28.
The Wednesday discussion revealed that an article according to which “the peculiarities of the realization of international educational programs is determined by the law on general education” is included in the language law.
Meanwhile, representatives of a pressure group in Armenia opposed to the bill called the step “an unprecedented case of misleading the public, a brazen neglect [of the public], deceit and fraud.”