The Milli Majlis Committees of Sciences and Education, and of Culture – held a joint meeting in Shusha on 31 October.

Whilst opening the meeting, the chairman of the Sciences and Education Committee Bakhtiyar Aliyev said that he was proud to be welcoming its participants in the free Shusha and ahead of the celebration of our glorious Victory Day.

Mr Aliyev talked about the liberation of Shusha in the 44-day Patriotic War, the historic significance of the great Victory and us being indebted to the shahids and gazies of our valiant Army who gifted those remarkable days to us under the leadership of the victorious Commander-in-Chief, President Ilham Aliyev. Then, the committee head thanked Chair of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova for having arranged for today’s meeting to take place in Shusha.

The participants of the joint meeting had a minute of silence in memory of the shahids fallen for the inviolability of Azerbaijan’s territorial wholeness before turning to the matters at hand.

Bakhtiyar Aliyev tabled the Tertiary Education Bill and a subject for discussion, it being the steps and undertakings to restore our cultural and historical legacy in the de-occupied territories.

Approval of the agenda was followed by a briefing regarding the said law, given by Bakhtiyar Aliyev who told about the law’s composition process and the efforts that the dedicated working group had done so far.

The committee chairman turned to the dramatic achievements had as a result of a purposeful policy and tenacious steps taken in the educational system of the country under the guidance of President Ilham Aliyev. He also brought up the subject of building a legislative foundation for those reforms, the endeavours to strengthen the system’s legal foundation, the state programmes adopted and the laws passed in this regard. According to Mr Aliyev, it is for the first time in Azerbaijan that a law is drawn up about tertiary education; opinions and suggestions of concerned institutions and specialists have been taken into account starting with its very first draft, too.

Having said all that, Mr Aliyev outlined the areas covered by the document and its principles; he also detailed the state standards and tertiary education stages, quality guarantees and other matters addressed in the 12-chapter, 55-article draft law.

The second item on the agenda of the joint meeting of the parliamentary committees was presented to the assembly by the chair off the Culture Committee Ganira Pashayeva.

Ganira Pashayeva said that the parliamentary committees’ meeting in the town of Shusha, the cultural capital of Azerbaijan, was a source of pride for her and that she viewed it as one of the outcomes of our glorious Army’s historic victory in the 44 days’ Patriotic War in the charge of the victorious Commander-in-Chief Ilham Aliyev. Mrs Pashayeva made homage to the spirit and souls of the shahids who had sacrificed their lives for their homeland, and thanked our gazies.

The Milli Majlis committee meetings and parliamentary hearings being placed in Shusha is a remarkable tendency, in the opinion of Mrs Pashayeva who thanked the leadership of the Milli Majlis for having provided for such proceedings with the blessing of the Head of State.

Then, the leader of the Culture Committee addressed the policy of vandalism of Armenia in regard to the Azerbaijani nation’s heritage and culture/history artefacts. She emphasised the boundless nature of the vandalism as witnessed throughout the three decades for which Armenia held our provinces in captivity. Hundreds of unique monuments of cultural and historical significance that used to stand on those lands were razed during the occupation period.  

Mrs Pashayeva filled the meeting participants in on the work done to restore the heritage of the liberated lands. The restoration component of the construction projects afoot over there is of special importance; this work goes on under the direct control of President Ilham Aliyev and First Vice President Mehriban Aliyeva, according to Mrs Pashayeva who told the MPs about the artefacts themselves in great detail.

The deputy heads of the committees Musa Gasimli and Fazil Mustafa as well as the MPs Eldar Guliyev, Etibar Aliyev, Jeyhun Mammadov and Ulviya Hamzayeva spoke then.

They talked about the historic momentum of the parliamentary committees’ meetings in Shusha, of the sanctity of the land of Shusha that is soaked in the blood of the Azerbaijani shahids, the significance of Shusha for the history, culture and education of the Azerbaijani people and their own feelings and impressions from being down here today. Comments and proposals regarding the agenda items were put forth as well.

The Tertiary Education Bill was found suitable for consideration at a subsequent meeting of the Sciences and Education Committee, with the opinions and suggestions made today to be taken into account duly.

With that, the joint meeting of the Sciences and Education Committee and the Culture Committee in Shusha was over.

The MPs Ulviya Agayeva, Kamila Aliyeva, Afat Hasanova, Anar Isgandarov, Parvin Karimzade, Mushfig Mammadli, Fatma Yildirim, Aghil Abbasov, Nizami Jafarov and Aziz Alakbarov as well as other officials also took part in the meeting.

The Press and Public Relations Department

The Milli Majlis