Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attended the graduation ceremony of Yerevan State University at the National Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet after A. Spendiaryan.

Welcoming those present, the Prime Minister congratulated them on the remarkable day. “I think graduating from the Yerevan State University is a very important event in the life of any students. I would like to remind all of us that in Armenia's transformation strategy until 2050, we have set a goal that at least three Armenian universities should be in the top 200 in the international ranking of universities. I think we should state that Yerevan State University is, of course, one of the strongest candidates for this goal. In general, we keep repeating that education and reforms in the field of education are the most strategic directions that should be developed by the Government of Armenia and the Republic of Armenia. There is no exaggeration in this, because as I am convinced that when facing any problem in any area of our public life, when trying to find the origin of that problem, we definitely link this or that problem with the field of education. It is very important that we take the opportunity of these kind of events not only to congratulate each other, but also to clarify our future plans, to be filled with new energy necessary for the implementation of that agenda.

In general, I always compare the positive reforms and changes we are talking about with a missile. When the missile is detached from the ground, there is the first stage of the engine, which is released after consumption, then there is the second stage, and then sometimes there is the third stage. I think that we are facing the need to develop our higher educational system with such a logic. Our higher educational system seems to have already exhausted the first-degreeengines, and I think it is time to launch the second-degree engines to get new speed, new quality, new content. I hope and I am confident that our today’s graduates of Yerevan State University will become the driving force that will make education reform more meaningful, more important, and more demanded for us.

On this festive event, I would like to express my appreciation to all the professors of Yerevan State University who have endowed our graduates today with the skills that should make them competitive, that should endow them with the ability to keep up with their dreams, with skills that will help everyone to take other people with them when pursuing their dreams, take the country, the motherland, the state with them.

Dear graduates, congratulations again. Thank you all for your dedication to the opportunity to change and change education. I would like to thank all the professors, the teaching staff, and Yerevan State University for their work. I want to wish all of us strength, will and energy to think, ponder, make a decision, move forward in these times”, Nikol Pashinyan said.

Prime Minister Pashinyan presented awards to a number of YSU representatives.

During the event, the well-known Armenian scientist, Nobel Prize winner Ardem Patapoutian, who was awarded with the title of Honorary Professor of YSU for outstanding achievements in science, delivered a speech.