Protests at Yerevan School Lead to Resignation of Principal

Ruzanna Azizyan, the principal of Yerevan basic school no. 11 after Monte Melkonyan, who is a member of the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA), resigned on May 5. This was announced by Anna Stepanyan, the head of the Department of general education of staff of Yerevan Municipality, in course of her meeting with the parents and teachers. In her words, if “the educator is not loved by her students, she should not enter the classroom”, and the decision to resign is the right one.

On the official webpage of the school, under Azizyan’s bio she is presented as “well-tempered, patriotic and the one who always fights for justice”.

The protest against Azizyan kicked off on May 4: dozens of pupils alongside their parents and teachers, demanded the resignation of the principal, claiming that she had previously involved them in the corruption schemes. Besides, Azizyan locked the pupils in the school to prevent them from participating in the anti-government protests that have commenced since April 13. In his speech in the school hall on May 4, Programs Director at the “Union of Informed Citizens” NGO Daniel Ioannisyan stated that Azizyan was among 136 school principals and directors of kindergartens who were involved in the fraudulent collection of votes for the Republican Party during the parliamentary elections of 2017.

Previously, on numerous occasions, Azizyan herself publicly claimed that she and the 3rd president of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan were groupmates at the university and that Sargsyan was a “very alluring young man”.

It is also important to mention, that amongst the classrooms named after national heroes in school no. 11 there is also a classroom named after tycoon, Republican MP Samvel Aleksanyan.