RA Minister of Education, Science, Culture, and Sports Vahram Dumanyan held a working meeting with the president of the Union of Employers of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Armen Baldryan and other representatives of the sector.

Deputy Ministers Zhanna Andreasyan and Karen Trchunyan participated in the meeting.

Representatives of the ICT sector presented their proposals on the implementation of training programs in the fields of general education, secondary vocational, and higher education: they are aimed at improving the quality of ICT education․

Emphasizing that cooperation with companies of the sector derives from the priorities of the education sector, Minister Vahram Dumanyan underlined the importance of the initiative of leading representatives of the IT sector: “The training of high-quality and competitive personnel is a common problem for both education and the economy․ I am glad that the consciousness of matching the interests of education and business is being formed We must combine our efforts, because without an educational system there will be no high-quality professional community, and vice versa, without specialized companies, educational institutions, and the state cannot solve the issue of training qualified specialists.”

According to the Minister, for many years, IT companies have been attracting talented young people to the field, offering gainful employment. As a result, a situation is created where competitive young engineers are not involved in the process of organizing education today. According to Vahram Dumanyan, the advancement of the sector is ensured not by the development of individuals, but by the development of a professional school.

In turn, the representatives of the ICT sector noted that they attach importance to strengthening communication and joint activities with the education system.

It was noted that in recent years, in collaboration with the Union of Employers of ICT, professional subjects "Microelectronics", "Fundamentals of Telecommunications", "Information Technologies" have been piloted in 10 high schools of Armenia. ICT sector representatives also suggest considering the possibility of piloting the "Artificial Intelligence" subject in high school, provided that this area has great prospects for development.

ESCS Deputy Minister Zhanna Andreasyan presented the main approaches to teaching STEM and IT subjects deriving from the new standard of general education, underlining that the amount of allotted hours has increased. She noted that the former subject "Informatics", according to the new standard, is called "Digital Literacy and Computer Science", which is included in the field of Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM).

An agreement was reached to discuss the implementation of the proposed course in line with the requirements of the new standard. It was noted that since September 2021, the standard of general education is being piloted in schools of the Tavush region, according to which professional orientation clubs operate starting from the middle classes, and in this regard, cooperation with ICT companies is of great importance.

Possibilities of cooperating with higher education institutions in developing educational programs were also considered. An agreement was reached to discuss the proposals of ICT companies by a broader professional group.

It should be added that the meeting was attended by ICT leading representatives Hovik Musaelyan (“Synopsys Armenia”), Gagik Evoyan (“Hylink”), Artur Ghoulyan ("Optym Armenia"), Tigran Simonyan (ACBA Bank), Eduard Musaelyan (ICT Union).