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A well-qualified and highly educated workforce plays a crucial role in an increasingly globalized knowledge economy. A well functioning education system based on everyone having excellent and equal opportunities to acquire useful qualifications and competences is thus an important cornerstone of strong competitiveness and a flexible labour market and of an individual’s opportunity to actively participate in society and in the labour market. The constant changes in the labour market and in society continuously make new demands on the skills and adaptability of individuals. Participation in adult education and continuing training help individuals participate actively in the labour market throughout their lives. The Government of Armenia fully shares that vision and agrees that the enhanced effort in adult education should be in the agenda of not only educational reforms, but also in the list of actions aimed at the increase of employment.
As a response action, UNDP VET Project more than a year ago has hosted an international expert Dr. Janos Sz. Tóth, Head of the Department of Education- and Social Sciences Faculty of János Vitéz of the Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Esztergom-Budapest, Hungary, President of Hungarian Folk High School Society, (HFHSS) Budapest, Hungary, President of European Association for Education of Adults for a period of one week with the purpose to get acquainted with local trends, challenges and developments of educational system in order to develop a Life Long Learning (LLL) Concept and Draft Law on Adult Education for Armenia. LLL Concept is one of the vital framework documents, which is playing crucial role especially in the field of formal and informal adult education allowing development of the qualifications and competences of the labour force and providing opportunities for all groups in the labour market and in the population – from the low-skilled to those with higher education. After numerous meetings with high-rank governmental officials, parliamentarians, employees from relevant ministries, state and private organizations, trade unions, chamber of commerce, youth organizations, representatives from international organizations, local NGOs, churches, universities and VET schools faculty and during several roundtable discussions, workshops and country side visits organized by UNDP “Vocational Education and Training System” Project, Dr. Janos Sz. Tóth has received valuable insights from concerned stakeholders which enabled him to developed draft LLL Concept for Armenia. After development of the Concept, which was translated into Armenian and submitted to the corresponding bodies for review and comments, a need for localized LLL Concept is emerged. Alignment of the basic ideas and thoughts reflected in the draft LLL Concept to the national peculiarities was also successfully addressed within the framework of the UNDP VET Project by the efforts of the group of local experts. As a result of team work headed by international expert, the localized draft LLL Concept was submitted to the Government of Armenia for approval and eventually the LLL Concept was approved on 43rd Government Session, on October 15, 2009, which one more time witnesses about sustainable results UNDP achieve in Armenia through VET project implementation strategy. |
A country-wide training campaign for 350 VET faculty aimed at introduction of modular based teaching in vocational education and training sector came to its successful completion. Participants of the training received a thorough understanding and competency about modular based teaching. The subsequent stage for the participants of these training sessions will be sharing the acquired experience about the modular teaching with their colleagues at the work places. The experience per se marks a transition from older system of teaching to another which is compatible with the state qualification standards of education. The added value of the trainings consists of the fact that the participants of the trainings gained an insight into main strategic directions of output oriented vocational education.
The trainings are formed in a way to provide with a platform for developing competency based skills and knowledge. They exposed the participants to new standards of preparing the cadres of specialists who are to be directly linked with the requirements of the labor market. 
The large-scale vocational re-trainings with further job placement for the registered unemployed are now implemented in full. The UNDP “Vocational Education and Training (VET)” Project together with the RA Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs made one more step in alleviating the social insecurity of the vulnerable layers of the society.
The activities arranged within the framework of the trainings that enabled the formerly unemployed to acquire new competencies and skills came to closure. 
On June 17, 2010 Dafina Gercheva, UN Resident Coordinator/UNDP Resident Representative (UN RC/UNDP RR) in Armenia, Anders B. Siegumfeldt, Head of Section, European Neighbourhood and Russia, Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Per Kirkemann, Managing Director, Nordic Consulting Group A/S visited the newly refurbished Vanadzor State Technological College.
UNDP VET Project is about to start a country-wide training campaign for 350 VET faculty aimed at introduction of modular based teaching in vocational education and training sector. Three-day (18 hours) training program is aimed to address teaching needs of those VET instructors who should start 2010-2011 educational year with the introduction of 61 newly developed State Competency Based Qualification Standards (CBQSs) along with corresponding Modular Programs. Participants are expected to be those VET teachers who will be able to become core teams for each of 82 VET schools they represent to further promote competency based modular teaching addressing the needs of the rest of the VET faculty further to be involved in competency based teaching.
