Armenia and France have signed agreements aimed at promoting and developing French language teaching in public educational institutions of Armenia, and to implement an additional Francophone project.
France will invest €600,000 ($670,000) within the framework of the project.
This funding will go towards providing Armenian schools with new textbooks, educational materials, and fresh programmes for teaching French.
‘French in Armenia is not only for the elite or the capital,’ wrote Ambassador Olivier Decottignies, adding that the agreements aim ‘to support those institutions, teachers, and students who choose French throughout the country’.
The signed agreements also provide pedagogical training for French language teachers, including a new methodology.
The ‘continuous, regular, and systematic’ training will launch from 2025.
In addition, a 225-hour pilot training programme will be implemented for around 30 French language teachers, who will later be able to train their fellow educators.
According to Education Minister Zhanna Andreasyan, Armenia currently has 19 schools with advanced French learning programmes. Andreasyan stated that they foresee this number increasing as the signed agreements are implemented.
‘We are especially aiming to improve the francophone environment, as well as to expand and spread the knowledge of French within the framework of this immense agenda’, Andreasyan said, noting that Armenia is set to host the 10th Francophone Games in 2027.
Armenia has been a member of the international organisation La Francophonie — responsible for the preservation and dissemination of the French language and universal values and organiser of the Francophone Games — since 2008. In 2018, Armenia hosted the organisation’s 17th Francophonie Summit.
In her official statement, Andreasyan highlighted that the planned programme will be fully consistent with the reforms implemented in the field of public education, which includes ‘the task of improving knowledge of foreign languages in schools’.
In July, the Armenian Government decided to reduce mandatory Russian language classes in public schools. At the time, there was speculation that the government intended to phase out compulsory Russian language education entirely.
However, according to the general education state standard adopted in 2021, Russian remains a mandatory subject for all students between the second and twelfth grades, with students being allowed to choose at least one more foreign language to study as of the third grade.
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