YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 11, ARMENPRESS. Deputy Prime Minister of Armenia Tigran Avinyan participated in the presentation of Education to Employment, a program by the Armenia National SDG Lab and the Institute of Public Policy.

In his remarks Avinyan congratulated the commencement of the project and expressed hope that the successful implementation of the program will contribute to overcoming a number of challenges which exist in the Armenian job market.

The Deputy PM said that almost all countries face the unemployment problem and it is getting more and more difficult to manage it with traditional approaches, the main reason being the rapid changes in the world. The demands for the job of a teacher, a public servant and engineer today significantly differ from the demands ten years ago. Parallel to the Fourth Industrial Revolution new professions are emerging and the old ones are disappearing. The changes in the employment sector are forcing to seek new and creative solutions. The Education to Employment program has adopted these very approaches and is completely in line with the government’s Work Armenia initiative’s goals, which focus on the development of policies based on facts in the employment arena.

Avinyan attached special importance to the studies of the job market’s trends and demand of the future’s professions using AI, which can become the basis for developing a new education policy.

The Deputy PM also spoke about Education to Employment’s component of contributing to the development of soft skills. He emphasized that soft skills have a big role in the modern job market, however these skills aren’t fully developed in the formal education process. Whereas it is extremely important to teach someone who is entering the job market the soft skills of critique, creating, teamwork and others.  This issue is also on the government’s agenda and is included in the Work Armenia program.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan