Textbook Printing is Underway, Issue Only Concerns 2nd, 5th, and 7th Grades: Andreasian

During today’s government meeting, Armenia's Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports, Zhanna Andreasian, presented the changes to the state educational standards in primary education.

She reminded that a new standard was approved back in 2021 and was tested in schools in the Tavush region. “Starting this September, meaning tomorrow, the standard will be implemented in phases across Armenian classrooms, taking into account the two years of experience with the standards, and a number of changes are proposed. There are two reasons for this: the experimental process itself during which we noted the areas needing improvement, such as the allocation of teaching hours at different educational levels; the second group of changes is based on legislative amendments, for instance, changes to the law on general education,” the minister said.

She added that preparatory work has been completed for the experimental standard, and an external independent evaluation has been conducted, with the report to be published in October of this year. “The preliminary data is quite encouraging and impacts the improvement of students' achievements and quality education, creating a new environment for teachers,” she noted.

The minister emphasized that “textbooks are a crucial component of the new standards, and we have changed the competitions for the creation and printing of textbooks. It was not easy to do, and it was a long and difficult process. The results are satisfactory nonetheless. The main goal is to create a competitive open field from which we could expect quality textbooks. We must understand that our country has not had new textbooks and competitions for over 15 years. There are no capabilities to write new textbooks and submit them for proper evaluation. As a result, the standard will be implemented in the 10th grade next year. All other grades have textbooks, and the remainder are available in electronic format.”

According to her, the printing of new textbooks is underway, and some schools will receive them during September. The issue regarding textbooks only concerns the 2nd, 5th, and 7th grades. Starting in September, salaries will also increase for teachers in unfilled classrooms and those teaching technical subjects, regardless of voluntary certification. “In this regard, there are two programs: the salary for teachers of natural science subjects will increase by 25 percent. This includes teachers of physics, chemistry, geography, biology, and informatics, regardless of which school they teach in and how many students the school has. The second program pertains to small rural schools with fewer than 100 students. Over 800 teachers will benefit from the first program, while more than 4,000 will benefit from the second program,” she concluded.