Schools Open in Armenia

Inside classrooms, teachers and students are struggling to adjust to new regulations. Students may no longer use workbooks, as all written assignments must be done on individually distributed handouts and teachers are not allowed to return graded work to students. In cases where written feedback is necessary, the guidelines recommend distributing photocopies — a tall order, given the expense and difficulty of access to printers in smaller communities. It is common practice in Armenian schools to call students to the blackboard, to review homework or demonstrate understanding of a lesson. Under the new regulations, this is not allowed.

Shushan Avetisyan, an English teacher in the village of Kalanavan, cited limits on written assignments and group work as challenges to her lesson process, but particularly emphasized the pressure the new rules put on students themselves. “It’s not pleasant for them to wear masks, and all of the other regulations are unfamiliar to them too. Even during breaks, students basically must always stay in the classroom.” On the whole, however, Avetisyan believes that her in-person classes have been “unambiguously more effective” than last semester’s distance learning, and described the prevailing mood in the Kalanavan village school as “peaceful and workmanlike.”

Some teachers have privately expressed doubt that these measures provide more than cosmetic protection. Especially in smaller communities, where classmates tend to be in close proximity without masks outside of school hours, the benefit of strict classroom practices is open to doubt. The perceived discrepancy between the extent of formal precautions and their practical utility is perhaps best embodied by the new digital infrared thermometers provided by the government as a first line of defense at the school door. While students in Debed have continued to queue up for temperature checks in the morning, the thermometer readings have mostly fallen between 29 to 35 degrees Celsius. (Normal human body temperature is 37 Celsius). The apparent unreliability of the government-issued thermometers has left school staff in doubt of what steps to take in cases where a high temperature is registered.

Potential consequences for failure to comply with anti-disease measures are severe. In cases of violation, school directors may face fines up to 300,000 drams — more than a month’s salary — and a school may be closed for two weeks.

Teachers at the Debed Secondary School have been apprised that a police officer has been stationed in the community to conduct random checks for compliance during the school day.

Given these circumstances, the fear of penalties is in some sense more immediate than fear of the virus itself. This is not to say that the danger of a new outbreak has receded from view, as Debed School director Zaven Khachatryan made clear at a staff meeting on September 15.