On 29 June, 27 representatives of civil society organizations met with Alexander Shagafyan, Head of the RA Education Inspectorate, within the framework of the EU-funded “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” Project.
Welcoming the initiative, Alexander Shagafyan mentioned that months ago he could have acted as a representative of the civil society and understood the concerns of NGOs working in the field of education. He also presented to the participants the functions, powers of the Inspection Body, as well as ongoing and upcoming tasks.
Issues related to the modernization of high school curricula, programs aimed at improving the curriculum of vocational and secondary vocational education institutions, problems facing the pre-school education, as well as the need for professional orientation of pupils in high schools were discussed during the meeting as well.
The parties also discussed the positive and negative aspects of multidimensional education in communities, where in many communities the school has fewer pupils and pupils of the second, fifth, and in some cases even the representatives of a third age groups study in the same class.
The head of the RA Education Inspectorate said: “This should be based on the peculiarities of our country, otherwise they would not have done it; all the age groups would be at school in corresponding classes and study the corresponding program. The fact that education is multidimensional can already cause concerns about having a problem of quality of education. If the first grade pupil is in the same classroom with the fourth grade pupil, and the teacher has to teach two different programs, and this in case where we do not consider the classes with three age groups, this is simply a situational solution and we still historically are in this situation,” Alexander Shagafyan said.
Representatives of the Education Inspectorate expressed readiness to have constructive cooperation in other formats with CSOs working in educational sector.
