On the initiative of the RA Ministry of Education and Science and the Armenian office of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), a meeting with international partner structures in the field of education was organized today, in which Minister Arayik Harutyunyan participated. In his welcoming speech, Shane Rosenthal, director of the Armenian office of the Asian Development Bank, highlighted the importance of the meeting, stressing that a new day has dawned in Armenia, and international partners working in the field of education aim to jointly find the best ways to develop the sector. This is reported by the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

In his speech, the Minister of Education and Science Arayik Harutyunyan presented the future vision of education development for 5-10 years. “Having a dream is very important for education and any progress in general. It was this dream that allowed us to make revolutionary changes in our country. I am convinced that when there is a dream, the important half of the work is already done. We can have one of the best education systems in the world in the next 10-15 years. There are all the necessary prerequisites for that. and our traditions in the field of education, and the resources available in the Republic of Armenia today allow us to dream and talk about it,” the minister noted. In this context, Araik Harutyunyan singled out several important principle goals that should become an educational result. “For example, what final result do we expect in the field of general education? a student graduating from school should be a thinking, analyzing, free citizen. We have inherited the Soviet education system, where citizens guided by stereotypes were mostly formed. One of the stereotypes of the Soviet tradition was to evaluate the quality of education by the mechanical volume of accumulated knowledge, which is one of the obstacles to the development of our system. We want to have a free teacher, whose task is not only to transfer knowledge, but also to teach the student to learn,” the Minister of Education noted and added that in the new program of the Government, education is first of all considered a right, the implementation of which must be ensured by the state. Education should be accessible to everyone. this is the next important principle. “At the recent ministerial summit of the member states of the Bologna process held in Paris, the question of accessibility and access to education was fixed in the final communiqué. The problem of access to education is characteristic of many countries. education is not accessible to all, but to certain strata, and this is a global problem. In this regard, Armenia should implement a number of steps both in the short-term, medium-term and long-term,” the minister emphasized.

In the short term, the primary problems of the education sector, according to the minister, are two: the de-partisanship of the system and the fight against corruption. “In recent years, a vicious tradition has been formed in schools and universities, when leaders with different party affiliations have been guided by their political interests in the field, which has created an unhealthy environment. What about the fight against corruption? Over the years, various organizations have provided large loans and grants to fight corruption. And although there were no noticeable results in this regard, some of our international partners continued to provide such funds, which was surprising. I want to emphasize that we will not take any grant for the fight against corruption from any international organization, because we believe that to eliminate corruption, first of all, political will is necessary, and the new government has that will,” the minister stressed.

Among the medium-term programs, Arayik Harutyunyan singled out the transformation of the National Institute of Education, the radical reform of the teacher certification and training system, widespread access to preschool education in all communities, the introduction of an effective management model for schools with a small student body, the substantive improvement of the 12-year education system, and the provision of an effective connection between the professional education system and the labor market.

The minister emphasized that the optimization model of small schools adopted by the previous government was not effective, on the contrary, education became more inaccessible. Referring to widespread public complaints related to 12-year education, the minister emphasized that the public is convinced that in the last 3 years in the public education system, students do not receive education. “The reason is that proper level programs were not developed along with the introduction of the system. Our task is to give new content to the 12-year education system in order to dispel widespread dissatisfaction. As an approach, I emphasize that maintaining the 12-year system is very important,” said Araik Harutyunyan.

Turning to the issue of training specialists oriented to the demands of the labor market, the minister noted that there is a need for serious steps to review the list of specialties in universities. In this context, the role of quality secondary professional education is also important. “Studying at a college or university” allows you to enter the labor market in a shorter way. In many cases, people prefer to go to the university, because the college and the school do not provide quality education, but this is an extremely important field,” said the minister.

From the point of view of the correlation between the volume of state allocations in the field of science and the gross domestic product of the country, the Minister of Internal Affairs considered it a worrying issue. “It is certainly necessary to increase the funding of education and science. However, the preliminary study of the budget shows that if the available resources are correctly and purposefully distributed, it is also possible to provide an effective solution to many issues,” Arayik Harutyunyan said.

During the meeting, the minister answered the questions of representatives of international organizations, which were related to the introduction of a new model of school management councils, reforms of the university system, clarification of the provisions of the new government program and action plan. Araik Harutyunyan emphasized that he expects effective cooperation with all structures, particularly emphasizing the support in the direction of institutional changes and the creation of sustainable values.