Two children from the Jaghatsadzor village in Gegharkunik Marz weren't planning on attending school this year. They didn't have clothes to wear.

Now they do, thanks to the Gegharkunik Regional Authority and an August 31 article in Hetq.

The day after the Hetq article appeared, Garik Badalyan, who heads the Regional Authority's Department of Education, Culture and Sport, took 4th grader Aleks and 9th grader Zhenya Ter-Grigoryan to the neighbouring town of Vardenis for a shopping spree.

"We are constantly telling local community leaders to keep us posted about such situations but, for some inexplicable reasons, they never do in time," said Grigoryan.

He said the Ministry of Territorial Administration and the Gegharkunik Authority would be consulting to devise a procedure by which such situations would be made known in time.

It is difficult to say how many more children like Aleks and Zhenya there are in Gegharkunik – children registered as going to school but who fall by the wayside due to socio-economic conditions.