Yet late last year Minister of Education and Science of Armenia Armen Ashotyan told governors and the mayor of Yerevan that the ministry does not object to “joining spring holidays to winter holidays if necessary, taking into consideration the difficulties related to providing schools with heating.”

According to the data of the National Center of Educational Technologies of Armenia, there are 201 secondary schools in Yerevan and 1,163 secondary schools in provinces of Armenia, some of them still need renovation and installment of heating systems.

As Prime Minister of Armenia Tigran Sargsyan stated mid-2011, there are 500 secondary schools in Armenia which now need renovation. “This is one of the primary issues in our provinces,” the premier said.

Even though the temperature does not correspond to the required 170C (62.6F) in some schools in provinces of Armenia, their managements have decided not to prolong the holidays.

Tamara Baghdasaryan, Director of the secondary school in Karakert village, Armavir province, told ArmeniaNow that they had decided not to prolong winter holidays at the session of teachers’ council.

“Later we would have to work overtime, because teachers need the spring holidays for spring planting (crops). We have already started our lessons. Today the weather is pretty warm; we have heated our stove, so we have to work,” Baghdasaryan says.