RA Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports Zhanna Andreasyan received the delegation headed by the Minister of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare of the Islamic Republic of Iran Seyyed Sowlat Mortazavi.
ESCS Deputy Ministers Artհur Martirosyan and Araqsia Svajyan, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Iran to the Republic of Armenia Abbas Badakhshan Zohօuri attended the meeting․
Zhanna Andreasyan welcomed the visit of the Minister of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare of Iran and the Delegation to the ESCS Ministry, emphasizing the importance of friendly cooperation between the two countries. The ESCS Minister reaffirmed the willingness of the Armenian side to advance the cooperation aimed at raising the Armenian-Iranian relations to a qualitatively new level:
“The scope of cooperation between our countries is very broad: our countries already have numerous memoranda and agreements on cooperation in various fields. We are ready to discuss new perspectives for cooperation as well. I know that your scope of coordination covers the field of technical and secondary vocational education. For us, this is one of the priority directions of education, and we are ready to discuss prospects for cooperation in this direction as well,” said Zhanna Andreasyan.
Minister of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare of the Islamic Republic of Iran Seyyed Sowlat Mortazavi thanked for the reception and emphasized the importance of prospects for cooperation with Armenia in the field of education. The Minister presented the Iranian experience in the field of technical and secondary vocational education, expressing willingness to share it with the Armenian side as well: “We are ready to share our experience with our friendly country Armenia. I am hopeful that we will be able to achieve the desired goals through consistent work.”
The ESCS Minister proposed to consider cooperation in the field of technical and secondary vocational education, in particular, on the example of institutions operating in the Syunik region:
"We are deeply interested in the possibility of joint programs in the Meghri region, where we have a vocational educational institution. We are interested both in infrastructure development, advancement of conditions, training of teaching staff, cooperation in capacity building, as well as in the development of joint educational programs in specific specialties,” said Zhanna Andreasyan and emphasized that the cooperation programs between the two countries in the field of education, science and technology are currently at the stage of modernization.
The parties also considered the possibility of teaching Persian in general education schools of the Republic of Armenia through the implementation of joint program initiatives. In this regard, Zhanna Andreasyan emphasized the importance of fruitful cooperation with the Iranian Embassy in Armenia: “Since September last year, we have been paying great attention to the study of regional languages, including Persian. I think this may be important in terms of strengthening public diplomacy.”
The sides emphasized that inter-university cooperation is of particular importance for the two states. The sides also highlighted the importance of mutual recognition of higher education qualifications and graduation documents of the two states.
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Iran to the Republic of Armenia Abbas Badakhshan Zohօuri in his speech highlighted the Armenian-Iranian historically friendly relations, stressing that the presence of Armenian churches in Iran and the Blue Mosque in Yerevan is evidence of the peaceful coexistence of the two peoples.
Other issues of mutual interest were also discussed during the meeting.