Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan visited Shirak region with his wife Anna Hakobyan. During the visit, the Prime Minister got acquainted with the asphalting works of the section of the Isahakyan-Gyumri road near the village of Bayandur. The average repair works of the 9.923 km section of the road are being carried out from the state budget funding. The government has allocated 599,988,800 AMD for the implementation of the works. About 90% of the works have been implemented.

Next, the Prime Minister and his wife visited the Vardan Ajemyan Drama Theater in Gyumri, where the jubilee event dedicated to the 90th anniversary of Shirak State University took place. The ceremonial event was also attended by the Chief of Staff of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Arayik Harutyunyan, Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport Zhanna Andreasyan, Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure Davit Khudatyan, Acting Mayor of Gyumri Sarik Minasyan, representatives of legislative and executive bodies, the university's teaching staff, and students.

Nikol Pashinyan, welcoming those present, congratulated them on the occasion of the day and noted that the activities of Shirak State University are highly appreciated. “2500 years ago, a man said: I know that I know nothing. And since that day, since those times, this short sentence has been storming the soul and mind of any thinking person. What is this sentence about? From the point of view of the author and others, this sentence is first of all about the ability to ask yourself questions,” the Prime Minister said.

According to the Prime Minister, this is one of the most important components of education and development in general. "In all areas, starting from education and ending with domestic and foreign policy, state governance, culture, and economy, we must be able to ask ourselves questions and must be able to work seriously to find answers to these questions. It is very important that we constantly say this regarding the need to be educated, to learn. This is a simple sentence with deep sense, which we must understand. The problem is not only to learn, the problem is also to learn to learn."

According to the Prime Minister, the formation of a university in Shirak in 1934 was also an economic demand. "The university, in general, the educational system, if it is not interconnected with the economy, goes beyond a certain logic. And in this regard, it is also very important to record that the educational system that we have operates in line with the requirments of time."

According to Nikol Pashinyan, the problem of society, individual, people, and the state is how much we are able to transform ourselves by asking ourselves questions, in accordance with the requirements of the time.

“And I want us to use these and similar anniversaries to create new platforms for our thinking, to see new paths for our perspective,” the Prime Minister said. Nikol Pashinyan expressed confidence that the development of the university system, regions, and cities will be discussed in more detail, but by and large, strategic goals should be viewed with a completely different logic. In this context, the Prime Minister, highly appreciating the work of the teaching staff of universities and the path that universities have traveled, also emphasized the importance of transforming and having internationally competitive universities. "We should not consider our current problems from the perspective of the interests of seperate universities. We should consider our problems from the perspective of the long-term interests of the state, the Republic of Armenia, because the state, its natural development is the only guarantee that in the near future we will have universities with a history of two hundred, three hundred, four hundred, five hundred years, a state, institutes, an economy and prosperity," the Prime Minister noted.

Summing up, the Prime Minister noted that it is necessary to clarify the purpose of the activities of our higher education system, and of the educational system in general. “The goal of our educational system should be that its graduates and students live well, simply live well, earn as much as possible, and ensure the well-being of themselves and their families,” Nikol Pashinyan emphasized, adding that the success of students should be measured not on the scale of Gyumri and Shirak region, which would mean going down the path of diminishing their potential, but on the scale of the world. “We must unlock the potential of our students on a global scale and we must look at our higher education system from the perspective of the world’s higher education map,” the Prime Minister concluded his speech.

The last stop of Nikol Pashinyan to Shirak region was Gyumri’s “Shirak” airport. The Prime Minister toured the newly built departure hall of the airport. The Prime Minister was presented with the work carried out and it was noted that the new arrival and departure terminals, which are already in operation, will be able to serve up to 1.2 million passengers annually. The departure hall occupies an area of 1,000 square meters with 2 boarding gates, the ability to service 2 flights at the same time, 6 border guard booths, as well as 450 square meters of area intended for duty-free shops and cafes. It should also be noted that renovation works were carried out also in the 700 square meter area of the old building of the "Shirak" airport, where it is planned to provide premises to organizations providing state service. The total investment in the "Shirak" airport amounted to about 14 million US dollars. The investments were made by "Armenia" International Airports" CJSC.