ARMENIA'S CLEVER MOVE: COMPULSORY CHESS CLASSES FOR PRIMARY SCHOOL PUPILS
Daily Mail, UK
Nov 16 2011
* Lessons will be character building for children aged seven to nine
* Nearly £300,000 earmarked to introduce new initiative
Chess has been made compulsory for primary school pupils in Armenia.
Education chiefs in the chess-obsessed former Soviet nation have
made the game part of the national curriculum for children between
the ages of seven and nine.
The Armenian authorities say teaching chess in school is about building
character rather than breeding champions.
Taking the pastime into classrooms will help nurture a sense of
responsibility and organisation as well as serving as an example to
the rest of the world, education minister Armen Ashotyan claimed.
~QWe hope that the Armenian teaching model might become among the
best in the world,~R he said
Nearly £300,000 has been allocated to allow the national chess
academy to draw up a course, create textbooks, train instructors and
buy equipment.
Another £600,000 will go towards buying furniture for chess classrooms.
Chess is a national obsession in tiny Armenia, a nation of three
million situated between Turkey and Iran.
The passion was fostered during the Soviet era, when the country~Rs
own Tigran Petrosian won the world championship in 1963.
He successfully defended the title three years later.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2061996/Armenias-clever-Compulsory-chess-classes-primary-school-pupils.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
From: Baghdasarian
Daily Mail, UK
Nov 16 2011
* Lessons will be character building for children aged seven to nine
* Nearly £300,000 earmarked to introduce new initiative
Chess has been made compulsory for primary school pupils in Armenia.
Education chiefs in the chess-obsessed former Soviet nation have
made the game part of the national curriculum for children between
the ages of seven and nine.
The Armenian authorities say teaching chess in school is about building
character rather than breeding champions.
Taking the pastime into classrooms will help nurture a sense of
responsibility and organisation as well as serving as an example to
the rest of the world, education minister Armen Ashotyan claimed.
~QWe hope that the Armenian teaching model might become among the
best in the world,~R he said
Nearly £300,000 has been allocated to allow the national chess
academy to draw up a course, create textbooks, train instructors and
buy equipment.
Another £600,000 will go towards buying furniture for chess classrooms.
Chess is a national obsession in tiny Armenia, a nation of three
million situated between Turkey and Iran.
The passion was fostered during the Soviet era, when the country~Rs
own Tigran Petrosian won the world championship in 1963.
He successfully defended the title three years later.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2061996/Armenias-clever-Compulsory-chess-classes-primary-school-pupils.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
From: Baghdasarian