Applying the G20 Training Strategy in Armenia (Phase 2)

Armenia launches first workshop on governance of Skills Development

The Workshop is the first one in a series of capacity building activities aimed at strengthening of local capacities in the field of Governance of Skills Development in Armenia conducted within the framework of the Project 'Applying the G20 Training Strategy: A Partnership of the ILO and the Russian Federation' (Phase 2)

Article | Yerevan, Armenia | 27 July 2018
Yerevan, Armenia (ILO News) The Workshop is the first one in a series of capacity building activities aimed at strengthening of national capacities in the field of Governance of Skills Development in Armenia conducted within the framework of the ILO Project “Application of G20 Training Strategy” on July 27th, 2018.

The Workshop was devoted to the introduction of the key principles of Governance of Skills Development along with the national realities, existing challenges and possible solutions aimed at improvement of Skills Development policies in Armenia.

The Workshop hosted 22 officials from Yerevan representing key governmental and state bodies, ILO constituents, social partners, development partners and members of the research community in Armenia. During the Workshop the Chair of the Republican Union of Employers, the Head of VET Department of the RA Ministry of Education and Science, the Director of National Center for VET Development, high-rank officials of the State Employment Agency, the Director of Armenian Training Foundation, representatives of the Confederation of Trade Unions, Armenian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and development partners community contributed strongly to the identification of key bottlenecks hampering the effective governance of the skills system in Armenia as well as provided solid views on the way forward to strengthen Skills Development in the country.

Gagik Makaryan, Executive Director of the Republican Union of Employers of Armenia, underlined that strengthening existing social partnerships in the VET sector is one of the measures aimed at the promotion of proper governance in Skills Development in Armenia. This is to be achieved through the establishment of effective mechanisms and tools to generate the enabling conditions to train new entrants to the labour market.

Artak Aghbalyan, Head of VET department of the MoES stressed the importance of certification of vocational occupations to assure proper quality of the existing workforce.

Marine Hakobyan, Director of Armenian Training Foundation, attached great importance to the role of the existing institutions involved in Governance of Skills Development in Armenia and called all the concerned parties for mutually beneficiary collaboration instead of existing fragmented short-term interventions and lack of cooperation at all levels.

Garnik Vagharshakyan, Head Educational Center of the Confederation of Trade Unions of Armenia pointed out the importance of sectoral Skills Governance and made a proposal to review priority economic sectors with high export potential announced by the Government of Armenia in 2012 to mainstream the existing efforts towards those sectors of economy which will be prioritized nowadays.

Within this context, the Project has created an excellent opportunity to learn about international successful experience of a number of industrially developed countries in the field of Governance of Skills Development. It also provided a floor to discuss the issue in light of the existing national and international experience, the role of domestic institutions in place, as well as the importance of recently developed policy instruments including the draft 2018-2022 VET Strategy, the Social Partnership Concept in VET adopted in March 2018, and Employment Strategy to be introduced by the end of 2018.

During the last sessions of the Workshop devoted to the identification of the main impediments for the proper Governance of Skills Development in Armenia as well as provision with the possible solutions to overcome the existing challenges the Workshop participants came with the list of obstacles and ways out to address the existing problems pointing out national, regional and sectoral levels of Governance of Skills Development in Armenia.

All speakers stressed the role of such Workshop in increasing the knowledge and professionalism of key policy-makers in the field of Skills Development through study of advanced world practice and analyses of national realities.

The Workshop was also a unique opportunity to listening and sharing of questions and concerns among key players in the field of Governance of Skills Development. Open discussions, vivid exchanges, active listening helped making the Workshop a useful experience for strategic thinking in the field of Governance of Skills Development in Armenia with understanding the roles and responsibilities of different players.

For more information on our work, please visit the Project webpage: www.ilo.org/g20ts