On 14 August, Naira Arakelyan, the Head of the “Armavir Development Centre” NGO, had a meeting with Lusine Arakelyan, a Deputy Minister of Education and Science.
The “Armavir Development Centre” NGO is one of the organisations implementing a sub-grant project for the Improvement of Public Policies, Advocacy, and Monitoring announced for CSO Coalitions (Networks). The project is funded by the “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” project funded by the European Union.
Lusine Nalbandyan, an expert from the “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” project, participated in the meeting.
In the scope of the “For Quality and Accessible Inclusive Education and Social Support” project, Naira Arakelyan, the Head of the “Armavir Development Centre” NGO which is the main applicant of the Inter-Regional Coalition dealing with the problems of Children with Disabilities, presented the project target sectors and their problems, the project duration, as well as the regions where it was implemented.
During the meeting, Naira Arakelyan presented their plans to carry out participatory monitoring in four marzes, in order to find answers to the most important questions, such as the efficient implementation of social pedagogues’ and psychologists’ work, the level of children’s inclusion in public schools, their needs assessment, work with parent communities, etc.
Ms. Naira Arakelyan noted that their team had a goal to focus all their resources on entering every school, speaking with the teachers, having meetings with parents, in order to present to them the need for transferring education from special schools to the field of public schools, as well as to identify the potential issues.
She also added about the team’s readiness to carry out analyses which could be very useful to the ministry in this transition period.
Deputy Minister of Education and Science Lusine Arakelyan noted that the ministry had a policy of cooperating with NGOs and delegating some of them to marzes where all the employees should be taken.
The participants agreed that Naira Arakelyan would also participate in in the meeting with parents of children with special needs that is to be held in Vagharshapat on 17 August where they would discuss their future actions.
