I want to finally comment on an article that appeared on Motherboard lauding the Armenian Ministry of Education for making chess education in schools compulsory. Apparently the Armenian government has finally realized that the incessant brain drain will leave the country with an inadequate leadership in the not so distant future. The idea is that by playing chess regularly, kids will learn how to strategize and hone their decisiveness. This move contrasts with the Chinese method of producing a master intellectual race by meddling with genes. The Armenian government has already spent $3 million on facilities and equipment.

“Chess develops various skills — leadership capacities, decision-making, strategic planning, logical thinking and responsibility,” Minister of Education Armen Ashotyan told Al Jazeera in a recent interview. “We are building these traits in our youngsters.”

Yet in parallel the Armenian government should also be taking initiatives to ensure that those youngsters will remain in the country 10 or 15 years from now. It’s no secret that the quality of education provided by public colleges and universities is by and large mediocre at best and bribe taking is a common practice within faculties. Investment in information technologies and science industry is still relatively low, which means the jobs they will expect probably won’t be there when they graduate and want to enter the workforce unless policies change now. Ashotyan himself paradoxically stated last November that scientists are better off working outside Armenia.

My clear concern is that they won’t be able to apply those traits of critical thinking and leadership in their own society and would rather be compelled to pursue conduits through which to conduct those skills outside Armenia. Drastically needed nation building may not happen to its maximal capabilities if this upcoming crop of new talent is not permitted to utilize their skills alongside an explicit criminal-obsessed subculture that tends to spurn intellect. You can only have so many players on the national chess team.

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