Armenian Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports Zhanna Andreasyan marked Students and Youth Day — celebrated annually on May 16 — with an address emphasizing the historic role of education in strengthening Armenian statehood and outlining the government’s ongoing higher education reforms.
In the address issued by the ministry’s press service, Andreasyan highlighted education reforms, expanded scholarship opportunities, academic mobility programs, and the planned “Academic City” project aimed at creating a modern educational and research environment for future generations.
Andreasyan emphasized that education and statehood have developed hand in hand in Armenia.
“Dear students and young people, on May 16, 1919 — in the very first year following the establishment of the First Republic of Armenia — the Council of Ministers adopted a decision to found a university in Yerevan. Despite extremely limited conditions, the country, which had only with great difficulty restored its statehood, established a university through one of its very first legal acts. This embodies the formula by which Armenia stands to this day: statehood and education are born together, and the strength of one serves the strength of the other,” the minister said.
Students and Youth Day, she added, is not merely a celebration of youth; it is an annual reminder that enlightened minds are the creative and foundational force of the state.
“Inheriting that vision and initiative, the Government of the Republic of Armenia today has also adopted a consistent policy of empowering its citizens through education, convinced that an educated and capable citizen strengthens the state and contributes to achieving its key priorities,” the minister emphasized in her address, adding that much has already been accomplished in the process of reforming higher education and that these changes are not superficial, but systemic.
“Thus, on September 11, 2025, the Armenian law ‘On Higher Education and Science’ entered into force, bringing the governance of academic and scientific research systems under a single framework for the first time in the post-Soviet period. The ongoing reforms are also moving us toward a more inclusive and accessible education system where, thanks to a new scholarship policy, students with satisfactory academic performance will not be excluded from the educational process due to a lack of financial means,” the minister said.
Andreasyan noted that the changes are creating a more flexible education system for students, allowing them to enrich their educational paths both within Armenia and abroad through mechanisms for academic mobility, credit accumulation, and the acquisition of micro-qualifications.
“At the same time as the content of higher education is changing, the physical environment of higher education is also being transformed through the ‘Academic City’ project, which in its first phase, by 2030, will provide students with the opportunity to study in a large technological cluster equipped with advanced facilities and to benefit from the academic and cultural infrastructure located there, including student dormitories with the capacity to accommodate up to 3,600 students,” the minister said, adding that some of today’s students will have the chance to study in that environment, while the most distinguished among them will go on to teach and conduct research there.
“With state support, 13 youth centers have been established and are already operating, and by the end of 2026, another six youth centers will be renovated and reopened. Their mission is to become important platforms for non-formal education, the realization of ideas, community development, and the encouragement of creative thinking.
“The creation of quality infrastructure, advanced educational programs, international joint laboratories, and youth environments forms the stable foundation that encourages students and young people to live and create in the Republic of Armenia, feeling the state as a source of support,” Andreasyan said.
Published by Armenpress, original at
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