Education funding is not a social function but an investment: Vice-rector of the Polytechnic University Sargis Asatryants participated in national consultations on “Transforming Education”

Education funding is not a social function but an investment: Vice-rector of the Polytechnic University Sargis Asatryants participated in national consultations on “Transforming Education”

RA Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport, UNO Armenian Office and UNICEF have organized national consultations on “Transforming Education”.

Aim of the meeting was to reveal current issues of education in our country and how to solve them.

Vice-rector for Internationalization and Reforms of the National Polytechnic University of Armenia Sargis Asatryants has participated in the national consultations.

Minister of ESCS Vahram Dumanyan welcoming those present pointed out that Armenia is in the process of global dialogue on education transformation issues. As he mentioned, in September, such consultations are held right before the Transforming Education Summit to be held in New York that will assist the current reforms in our country, long-term strategic planning of education advancement as well as will clarify the scope of activities to be done by Armenia concerning education transformation.

Deputy Minister of ESCS Arthur Martirosyan while presenting main issues and goals of the program “State program of Education Development of the Republic of Armenia till 2030” pointed out that each individual has some talent and the mission of the educational system is to reveal and develop everybody’s abilities thus enabling the individual to maintain their welfare in their own country the guarantee of which should be competitive economy and stable government.

Minister of ESCS Vahram Dumanyan, acting coordinator of UNO in Armenia Lila Peters Yahia, acting representative of UNICEF in Armenia Silvia Mestroni, Deputy Minister of ESCS Arthur Martirosyan, international partners and embassies, state and community agencies, youth and non-governmental organizations, representatives of private sector, lecturers and independent experts took part in the event.

In the second work section, participants were engaged in different work groups each with their scope of issues, thematic directions such as inclusive, fair, secure and healthy schools, teachers, studies, life, job and sustainable development skills, digital learning and transformation, and education financing.

NPUA Vice-rector Sargis Asatryants was engaged in higher education financing group.

“I presented the results of the group: we finalized that state financing of education is not enough and is ineffective. The mechanism of financing is not right. We should utilize another approach. We should increase the transparency and direct financing to create a knowledge-based economy. We recorded that we should not observe education financing as a social function but as an investment” – Sargis Asatryants pointed out.

He considers the international experience to demonstrate that human capital is the most important reason of economic growth rather than institutions. According to the vice-rector, economics considers the human capital the main component of productivity of the society and the driving force of any economic development.

The results of the consultations will be used in September 2022, at the Transforming Education Summit to be held during the 77th session of the UN General Assembly in New York as well as during the development of educational policy by RA government.