Since 2018, a new education strategy has been developed and tested in Armenia. On the basis of this strategy, the education development programme for 2022-2030 was accepted in October 2022. It contains a number of serious transformations in terms goals, methodologies, institutional and infrastructural capacities, education and knowledge standards, quality of personnel, and transparency of educational processes[1]. Currently, application of new standards, requirements and the institutional capacity improvement are in progress, although their introduction is gradual and largely discussed by the professional and beneficiary communities, media and social networks.
Along with institutional, ideological, programmatic and methodological changes, the new system of education is supposed to be compatible with the new cultural vision. Although the new cultural policy is not officially developed yet, some strategies have already been developed and introduced. New approaches pay special attention to students’ cultural rights and opportunities, as well as accessibility of cultural events and institutions. The analysis of the current situation should be started with the transformation in general understanding of the concept of cultural education. If before 2018 cultural education was represented in the school in a form of secondary disciplines such as art and music, then one of the first educational programmes of the authorities was the state support of the systemic attendance at cultural institutions (theatres, museums, art galleries, etc.) by students (at least three free entries per student). The aim of the such programmes is to turn cultural education into a necessary part of public education, to strengthen the connection between society and culture, individuals and culture connection from school and preschool. Another programme is aimed at making art closer to students. Some masterpieces of national and world art from local museums are being brought to educational institutions, accompanied by specialists lecturing about them. This programme has a limited nature, because of multiple problems of security, etc[2]. However, attending museums and museum education programmes is becoming more and more developed and demanded in schools. Many (but not all yet!) state and community museums have a bunch of different types of educational programmes for schoolchildren of different ages, students of high schools and children with disabilities[3].
Such a strategy is mirroring the policy approaches applied in France in the 1960s, where the basics of cultural education was believed to have to be initiated by the state under the slogan “Culture for everyone”[4].
Also, it has to be mentioned that the local programmes of community development usually contain programmatic activities and strategies of cultural education. Thus, community development plans set the tasks of supporting cultural mobilization and self-expression, and encouraging cultural diversity. However, according to our observations, sometimes plans of cultural development and cultural education in communities turn out not to be successful, because they are often formal, are not based on new approaches to culture and cultural policies, new methodologies and techniques, and just reproduce old patterns that have been already proved to be ineffective. This is a serious gap that needs to be filled in by systemic changes.
The relationships between education and community programmes are presented in more detail in section 5 of this document.
[1] See: education program, https://escs.am/am/news/11602
[2] Reference https://escs.am/am/static/museumfromhome?s=culture
[3] See for instance: National Art Gallery, http://www.gallery.am/hy/classes/
[4] David L., Cultural policy in France since 1959: arm’s length, or ‘up close and personal?” // http://fgimello.free.fr/documents/florida/cultural_policy_in_france.pdf
Comments are closed.