The Deputy Head of Goris community, Irina Yolyan, met with Shane Quinn, the head of the “DeaLoG” program at SALAR International, Varsenik Mnatsakanyan, the Senior Program Manager for the program in Armenia, and communication expert Smbat Ghahramanyan.
The Deputy Head of the community welcomed the visit, emphasizing the organization’s long-standing and rich experience in decentralization and local government reforms. She thanked the organization for its attention to the community and expressed her readiness to actively participate in the work.
During the meeting, the issues and current state of the decentralization of public education within the framework of the “DeaLoG” program were discussed, particularly the opportunities for Goris community and schools to engage in school-community collaboration. Both sides agreed to make efforts to establish such relationships. Priority issues for the community were also addressed.
Shane Quinn, the program manager, showed interest in the community’s issues, success stories in various areas, tools for amplifying the voices of the population to local authorities, social services provided by the community, and the community authorities’ views on decentralization reforms.
Both sides emphasized the importance of the process for the continuous development and improvement of institutional capacities within communities.
The program manager expressed readiness to provide the Goris community with methodological tools and content support based on Sweden's experience in the education sector, mentioning that if the community desires, Swedish experts from Stockholm would visit Armenia to teach local partners. In the context of decentralizing education, Shane Quinn stressed the independence and autonomy of communities, including in decision-making processes within the financial sector.
According to Irina Yolyan, the community lacks the necessary legal mechanisms to influence or control the operations of schools, which is problematic, given that schools operate within the community’s administrative boundaries but do not participate in community life or processes related to the community’s future. Meanwhile, for example, the community head is practically responsible for preventing various incidents and phenomena that occur in schools.
At the end of the meeting, Varsenik Mnatsakanyan, the Senior Program Manager in Armenia, invited the Deputy Head of the community to the upcoming municipal forum in February, informing her that the second forum would be dedicated to the key issues of decentralizing the education sector.
The “Support for Decentralization and Local Self-Government Reforms in Armenia” (DeaLoG) program is funded by the Swedish government and aims to assist the Armenian government in advancing decentralization and implementing local government reforms by providing advisory, analytical, and capacity-building support.