Epress.am News from Armenia
In Armenia, year after year, the number of individuals applying for doctoral candidacy is rising. Since 2004, there has been a yearly flow of 400 or more doctoral candidates, while in 2013, there was a record number of 564. That is a 2.5 increase from the year 2000. The number of individuals defending and receiving doctoral degrees is approximately around 50 and has not seriously risen.
Candidates and Doctorates Dissertation Defenses
Analysis shows that the majority of the candidate degrees are obtained every year in the field of economics. Just in 2013, 104 individuals became doctoral candidates in economics, which is 1/5th of the overall candidates of all Sciences. In previous years, the number of candidates would often pass 100, or border it. In 2013, Yerevan mayor, Taron Margaryan, also received a candidacy in economics for his dissertation “The main issues of Yerevan’s socio-economic development.” Margaryan’s dissertation defense became scandalous due to the restriction of entering the normally public defense and because the university’s Republican Party youth members violated the professional work of journalist wanting to cover the story.
Other than economics, many candidates enter majors like Engineering (2013 – 94 candidates) and Philology (2013 – 64 candidates). Despite the overall growth, in some fields, on the contrary, a decrease has been registered. Specifically, in 1994 there were 5 canditates in Philosophy, while in 2013 there was only 1.
In contrast to candidates, the number of doctorates had sharply risen only until 1996, reaching 58 from 31 of 1994. Since then, the number of those receiving degrees has decreased. In particular, only 46 doctoral degrees were obtained in 2013.
The number of doctoral candidates in the engineering, physics and mathematics, and medical sciences are comparably stable and high. In 2013, of the 52 degrees obtained, 12 were from engineering majors, 6 from Physics and Mathematics, and 5 from Medical. Whereas in 2013, among the 104 Economics candidates, only 4 obtained a doctoral degree, while in Philology among the 64 candidates only 1 received a degree.
The analyzed information was taken from Higher Attestation Commission’s official website