"Development through Education" - Interview with David SAHAKYAN

Karen Aghekyan's article is dedicated to an interview with David Sahakyan, Executive Director of the Ayb Educational Foundation, which reveals the philosophy and practical mechanisms of the foundation's work, oriented toward the systemic development of Armenian education as an instrument of social transformation.

Introduction and biographical context

The material is preceded by a biographical note on David Sahakyan — a graduate of the Yerevan Physics and Mathematics School, a specialist in management and organizational development, who was among the founders of the Ayb Foundation in 2006 and has served as its Executive Director since 2009.

Key position: concentration of effort and the "hearth" principle

The central idea of the interview is the foundation's rejection of large-scale state initiatives in favor of concentrating on education as a growth point capable of "infecting" the whole of society with a positive example. Sahakyan formulates the principle of creating exemplary models:

• creating a demonstration laboratory at the Yerevan Physics and Mathematics School as a model for disseminating experience;
• initiating similar projects at other schools (Kajaran, the Chekhov school) through fundraising and technical support;
• relying on "infection" through positive example rather than directive implementation.

Community as value

Special attention is given to the foundation's structure — a combination of a club (a community of people who have achieved success through education) and a foundation (a program implementer). The interview emphasizes the principle of organic community growth, gratuitous assistance to succeeding generations, and protecting the educational process from being dictated by individuals, the state, or business, through the scaling up of the number of participants.

The national and the global in education

Sahakyan resolves the contradiction between global competitiveness and national identity, asserting that personal development always occurs through communities, and that the national element can become the attractive force of such a community rather than an archaic obstacle. This is illustrated by the story of a program graduate who was admitted to Stanford without any binding obligations toward the foundation.

Educational materials and comparison as a condition for development

A special place is given to the description of the foundation's translation work — adapting the world's best textbooks into Armenian (including Savchenko's problem book) without ties to a single educational model (IB, AP, A Level). The key tool of development is named as providing material for comparison, since, according to Sahakyan, there is no development without comparison.

Conclusion

The interview's final thesis is that the source of the problems in Armenian education is society's lack of a critical attitude toward education as a product requiring the presentation of specific demands. The formation of such a demand is possible only through the practice of comparison — competitions, olympiads, open platforms — which the Ayb Foundation is consistently institutionalizing, while leaving schools and society the right to independently choose alternatives.