The Tavush region’s Hovhanes Hintliyan secondary school is only 200 meters from the Armenia-Azerbaijan border, where some days both students and teachers can hear the sound of shots firing off in the distance.
After the school’s elementary students finish their studies around 12 o’clock, they must wait between two and three hours for the school bus to bring them home. To productively fill these hours, the Constantinople Armenian Relief Society (CARS) administration recently hired two more teachers to work with the children.
FAR’s Press Secretary Levon Lachikyan recently returned from a trip to Tavush, where he was able to meet Kristine Pashinyan and Lusine Hakobyan, the newest additions to Hintliyan. For both of them, the job is a dream. After graduating from university, neither of them worked. Instead, they married and had children. Still, they have always looked for an opportunity to apply their skills and at last are glad to have it. Now, they spend these few hours happily teaching these children how to write, play music and recite poetry.
“We are very happy to start our career in a school that bears the name of the great pedagogue Hovhannes Hintliyan,” Lusine said. “We are here to stay.”
The school, founded by Mr. Hintlian in 1909 in Constantinople, was opened with a mission to introduce the new European teaching models of the time into the Armenian educational system. The Hintlian School was closed in 1988. However, thanks to the support of the Constantinople Armenians Relief Society (CARS), a secondary school in the Gayan community in the Tavush region of Armenia was named after Hovhannes Hintlian, and his legacy therefore continues. FAR is responsible for the administration and execution of the day-to-day operations of the school.