Your trusted source

The National Erasmus+ Office in Armenia suspended its activities in early 2025, its former team said in a statement on Friday. The full statement is provided below.

"We would like to inform you that as of January 1, 2025, the National Erasmus+ Office in Armenia has suspended its activities due to the decision of the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports of the Republic of Armenia.

For consultations on all activities of the Erasmus+ program, you should now contact the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports of the Republic of Armenia directly.

In order to avoid any possible questions, we present below the main justifications provided by the Ministry:

- Erasmus+ projects have mainly contributed only to business trips to European universities and have been mainly about tourism.

- The projects have not led to any noticeable impact on the Armenian higher education system.

- The topics of the projects do not generally reflect the priorities for the development of higher education in Armenia.

In fact, as our partners know, the main mission of the National Erasmus+ Office in Armenia is to disseminate information about the Erasmus+ program among target groups, provide them with advice and support, and the stated justifications of the Ministry may apply to various actors (including the Ministry itself, which is a participant in many projects), but not to the National Erasmus+ Office in Armenia. We do not have the authority or mandate to evaluate, select and/or monitor projects.

Briefly summarizing the latest stage of our Office’s activities, we consider it important to highlight the following 3 indicators:

1. Currently, Armenia ranks first in the Eastern Partnership region in terms of the number of projects of VET institutions (CBVET) and third in terms of the number of capacity building projects in higher education institutions (CBHE) (after Ukraine and Georgia). These results are the result of the joint efforts of our Office and educational institutions.

2. Surveys conducted over the past 2 years show that the satisfaction of beneficiaries using the Office’s services regarding the Office’s activities is at a very high level (9.4 points out of 10).

3. The Office enjoys high trust from the European Commission and the European Education and Culture Executive Agency. It has consistently received “very good” or “good” ratings in all annual and final reports submitted to the Agency, as well as in all 4 audit reports (the latest one by BDO London, October 2024).

These ratings are the best evidence that our office and our partners have made a significant contribution to the development of the education sector in Armenia, and our activities have directly aligned with pan-European and national priorities.

Despite the current situation and all its consequences, the National Erasmus+ Office in Armenia is hopeful that the Erasmus+ programme will continue to operate in Armenia on the same or larger scale, contributing to the internationalization of education in Armenia and the creation of new educational opportunities. We wish success to the educational institutions and hope that the ongoing and expected projects will, as always, promote the formation of a collaborative, liberal and internationally visible educational system.

We express our deep gratitude to all our partners and beneficiaries for their years of cooperation with us and their efforts to improve the educational environment in Armenia."