KHACHATUR ABOVYAN ARMENIAN STATE PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY

Armenian State Pedagogical University today hosted Marat Sagintaevich, Vice-President of the Chess Federation of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and Irina Grishchenko, Executive Director of the Shakhmardan Yessenov Science and Education Foundation.

The aim of the visit was to get acquainted with the activities of the ASPU Department of Chess and Sports, the newly-opened Centre for Educational Research in Chess, teaching of chess in Armenian schools, as well as the exceptional experience of the country.

ASPU Rector Ruben Mirzakhanyan received the foreign guests who were accompanied by Smbat Lputyan, Head of the ASPU Department of Chess and Sports, Founder and President of the Chess Academy of Armenia. Mr Mirzakhanyan stressed Armenia’s experience and contribution to the development of chess, noting that the country’s extensive experience in this field is not only a reality, but also ‘the educational brand’ of the country. 

He also spoke about the international conference “Chess in School” which was held at the University and stressed the importance of reports presented by ASPU lecturers and graduate students, which, he said, were a novelty and presented the results of research carried out by the authors. “Armenia is the first country where chess was introduced as a mandatory discipline in the school curriculum. The country’s experience is unique in this sense: the number of classes in schools is not so great, but it is only a matter of time. The largest pedagogical university in the country that offers classes in at least 50 specialties will enable educators [with appropriate training]   to teach chess in addition to their core subjects,” Mr Mirzakhanyan added. 

Marat Sagintaevich, Vice-President of the Chess Federation of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and Irina Grishchenko, Executive Director of the Shakhmardan Yessenov Science and Education Foundation, stressed that they had also studied the experience of Russia and Spain [in the field of chess] but they find that the Armenian experience is more impressive, unique and unmatched.

Marat Sagintaevich said it is especially important that the activities of the Armenian Chess Federation are supervised personally by the country’s president. He also noted that as a result of cooperation with the Pedagogical University, as well as negotiations with Smbat Lputyan, chess will be introduced in the 2nd and 4th classes as an independent school discipline.

During the meeting, Irina Grishchenko introduced the activities of the structure she heads, its directions and goals. She said the Shakhmardan Yessenov Science and Education Foundation is interested in developing the intellectual level of young people in her country and chess can play an important role in this context. “Recent studies have shown that younger generation lacks a basic knowledge, and chess has been chosen as an alternative to modern computer games to develop children’s spatial thinking, intelligence and ability to concentrate. The beginning is of course difficult but studying the experience of your country, the joint efforts and characteristics of good teaching of the subject at the Pedagogical University, we  hope that we shall not start from scratch, but from a certain level,” she said. 

The guests also visited the ASPU Centre for Educational Research in Chess where the head of research programs, Vahan Sargsyan, presented them the activities and main directions of the Centre, and employees shared their experience and achievements. The sides also agreed to continue cooperation and use the Armenian experience in Kazakhstan.