News
The Third Stage of Grant Project of Public Administration Academy of Republic of Armenia is Being Summarized.
06.07.2017
On June 14, the representatives of the ''Center for Education Projects'' PIU had a visit to the Public Administration Academy of the Republic of Armenia, where a working meeting was held. The aim of the visit was the monitoring of current grant project of Competitive Innovation Fund (CIF). The project manager, and vice-rector for External Relations of the Public Administration Academy of Armenia, Teresa Khechoyan introduced the p current situation with the grant project “Online Master’s Program with Joint Diplomas” within the frameworks of CIF. This project, which was launched in December 2015, is aimed at the introduction and development of distance learning in the Republic of Armenia, ensuring availability of masters’ programs by means of information and communication technologies (ICT). The activities carried out in the framework of the project include the following: installation of the platform for distance learning, training of the teaching staff of Public Administration Academy of the Republic of Armenia and RA NAS International Centre for Education and Science in distance learning and development of subject syllabuses in distance learning mode, etc. It is worth mentioning that “Memorandum on Development of Distance Learning in Armenia'' has been already signed on June 23 of 2016 between two universities participating in the consortium project and RA Ministry of Education and Science, aiming to improve and strengthen the national system of distance learning. The normative documents to ensure the systematic approach to the distance learning in Armenia and regulate the implementation of distance learning are developed and approved by the scientific councils of higher educational institutions. As a result of monitoring of the third stage of the project, it was fixed that curriculum for the specialization “Business Management” masters program was approved and will launch in 2017-2018 academic year. Development of the subject syllabuses in distance learning mode is in the final stage. The project was presented at “Education and Career Expo 2017” international specialized exhibition in April 26 of this year. According to the grant project manager, methodological trainings of the teaching staff in distance learning are conducted. Over the course of four months, lecturers have been trained in the field of distance learning technologies, features of distance learning and distance communication rules. In the context of the project ”Collection of documents regulating the organization and implementation of distance learning” has also been published, which summarizes the documents developed within the framework of the grant project, methodology guidelines for distance learning, procedures for organizing the educational process in distance learning mode, the regulation for granting joint diplomas, the regulation of usage of the database of the distance learning platform, etc. It was noted that the developed documents are very important also for other higher education institutions from the point of view of becoming a benchmark for distance learning. In this respect more important becomes the acquisition of license of master’s degree program realization in a distance format for business management, which can be a serious impetus for the development and further enlargement of distance education in Armenia. A number of issues related to the organization of further work under the Grant Project were discussed during the meeting. It should be added that the grant project is aimed at the strengthening of distance learning in RA and development of national system of distance education.
