A regular Cabinet meeting took place today, chaired by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

Nikol Pashinyan referred to the program of ensuring access to quality educational services in Syunik Province of the Republic of Armenia. “You know that in the Government's Action Plan and in our pre-election program we indicated the need to build, reconstruct, renovate 300 schools and 500 kindergartens in the Republic of Armenia during the next 5 years. I would like to emphasize that in this context, our pre-election promise and the provision in the Government’s Action Plan that 85% of children aged 3-6 should be involved in pre-school institutions is extremely important. Now it is very important to make decisions about the formulas for the implementation of these programs. On November 4, I signed a decision to approve the program to ensure access to quality educational services in the Syunik Province of the Republic of Armenia, which is a very important decision. In fact, we can consider that we are launching the implementation of this program from Syunik Province. The most important task that we have set before us is that education should be accessible to all children of the Republic of Armenia and have a proper quality in order to reveal the full potential of the citizens of the Republic of Armenia. Interesting research has been done, and our work is based on them. Going through the existing infrastructure and educational system in the Republic of Armenia, the average statistical citizen of the Republic of Armenia can reveal only 57% of his potential. In other words, we have evaluated our current educational infrastructure with modern methodology, including the content, physical infrastructure and recorded that a person, by fully using our educational services offered today, can reveal only 57% of his potential. According to the next important statistics, at the end of elementary school today, about 35% of our pupils can not read or understand simple texts. In other words, imagine that a child who has finished the 4th grade either cannot read the simple text or, if he can read, he cannot understand.

It is clear that huge resources for the implementation of this program in the educational system are necessary. Now we are starting from the enlarged community of Kapan in Syunik Province, and here we will invest 9 billion drams to implement that educational program," the PM said.

The Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport Vahan Dumanyan noted that it was proposed to implement school reforms in the enlarged community of Kapan within the program of the improvement of educational institutions, which includes the city of Kapan and 31 nearby villages. He noted that 31 villages were studied and the following proposal was presented, “The existing schools in 6 villages should be maintained, providing them with the opportunity to deliver professional education from pre-school to 12th grade. And in the other 25 villages it was proposed to create 7 nodes, where children from different communities will be united and will be provided with quality education. It is proposed to build 8 roads to ensure the operation of these 7 nodes. Of course, the program also includes quality transport means”.

Nikol Pashinyan emphasized the fact that pre-schools should be located as close as possible to schools in order to use common means of transportation. “Every morning, these vehicles will bring the children from the villages to the educational node at the expense of the state, and in the evening will take them home”, the Prime Minister said, adding that the roads will be renovated to meet the highest modern standards.

Deputy Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport Zhanna Andreasyan noted that the program envisages not only the improvement of infrastructure, the creation of new modern conditions, but also the introduction of relevant educational content. Zhanna Andreasyan noted that in addition to the building conditions and the organization of transport routes, it is planned to equip the property with laboratories in all these places.

The Government made a decision on allocating financial recources for the renovation works of M-2, Yerevan-Yeraskh-Goris-Meghri-border of the Islamic Republic of Iran interstate highway, M-8 Vanadzor (M-6 crossing point) -Dilijan and H-72 / M-2 / Vahanavank sections. The total cost of the 3 contracts concluded for this purpose is 482 302 020 AMD. The decision proposes to make a redistribution, directing the necessary amount to financing the mentioned contracts.