RA Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports Zhanna Andreasyan received today Lusine Sargsyan, Director of the Armenian Office of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Deputy Minister Arthur Martirosyan participated in the meeting.

Welcoming the guest and congratulating her on assuming the position of director, Zhanna Andreasyan expressed confidence that her activities will contribute to the advancement of productive and close cooperation with UNFPA.

During the meeting, opportunities for expanding cooperation with the ESCS Ministry as part of upcoming UNFPA programs were discussed. The Minister highlighted the significance of UNFPA's support for a number of initiatives, in particular, the work carried out to develop the RA Law “On Youth Policy”, piloting and implementation of the state standard for general education, and promoting healthy lifestyle education.

It was noted that since 2020, UNFPA has coordinated the assistance of international partners (UNESCO, UNICEF, and WFP) to the ESCS Ministry as part of education reforms aligned with the state standard for general education. The support specifically focused on developing a healthy lifestyle curriculum and teacher manuals by a multidisciplinary team of experts, piloting the state standard for general education in the Tavush region, organizing teacher training, and monitoring classroom processes. The Fund also trained about 100 mentors, selected on a competitive basis, who worked on developing curricula and manuals for various grades.

Expressing gratitude for the efforts and work accomplished, Zhanna Andreasyan emphasized the importance of enhancing teachers' professional capacities in the “Healthy Lifestyle” subject through organizing training courses.

Director of the UNFPA Office, Lusine Sargsyan, highlighted the importance of cooperation across various levels of education and emphasized the implementation of joint capacity-building programs with Armenian universities.

It was mentioned that a memorandum of cooperation has been signed with Yerevan State University, within the framework of which it is planned to advance the research capacities of the university's demographic center.

Highlighting the importance of cooperation with higher education institutions, Minister Zhanna Andreasyan suggested the possibility of presenting the programs in a modular format and later introducing them to other universities. In this regard, the need to develop and distribute methodological manuals for university staff was highlighted

During the meeting, the parties also addressed various other issues of mutual interest.