Armenia 2024

Key takeaways

The 2024 Torino Process monitoring results for Armenia offer a balanced view of both progress and persistent challenges in VET. While VET still struggles to position itself as an attractive pathway, particularly for adult learners, initial VET programmes remain more appealing to youth. Accessibility gaps are driven by the limited implementation of policies designed to support adult learning, despite an existing legislative framework that encourages modularisation and the validation of informal learning. Planned reforms, including programme modernisation and new quality assurance initiatives, aim to improve access and responsiveness over time.

Quality and relevance in Armenia’s VET system continue to show a mixed performance. The system demonstrates growing responsiveness to labour market demands and is making strides in embedding digital and green competences into curricula. However, foundational skills among young learners remain weak, and the overall effectiveness of VET in preparing graduates for employment is still limited. On a more positive note, career guidance services are accessible and structured, providing learners with tools to make more informed education and career choices. The recent shift in strategic priorities toward teacher professional development and systemic innovation is a promising step toward improving the quality and relevance of learning provision.

Resourcing remains a key area of concern. Armenia continues to face challenges in collecting reliable data to support planning and performance monitoring. Financial constraints limit investment in infrastructure and learning materials, with many providers struggling to offer a modern, well-equipped training environment. Nonetheless, the system has shown openness to international cooperation and peer learning, with active participation in programmes like Erasmus+. Ongoing reforms focused on teacher development, quality standards, and accountability mechanisms are expected to contribute to a stronger, more inclusive VET system that is better aligned with the needs of both learners and the labour market.

Access to learning

Monitoring in the area of access to and participation to learning helps countries assess the extent to which initial VET, continuing VET and other learning opportunities are accessible and attractive to all learners, regardless of their individual backgrounds or reasons for participating. The data also reflects how well learners can expect to progress through and graduate from these learning opportunities.

Opportunities for lifelong learning: access and participation

The Torino Process monitoring results for Armenia confirm that VET continues to struggle to position itself as an attractive learning pathway. Although initial VET (IVET) programmes are relatively more accessible and appealing to young learners, access to continuing VET (CVET) remains extremely limited. In fact, Armenia performs well below the international average in both areas, with the widest gap appearing between the youth and adult segments of the system.

One of the key reasons for this gap lies in the lack of implementation of otherwise favourable legislative provisions for CVET. While Armenia has a legislative framework that supports access through measures such as modular programme design, targeting of specific learner groups, and plans for recognising non-formal and informal learning, these measures have not yet been fully put into practice. The main obstacles relate to resource constraints and to limited institutional capacity.

Despite these limitations, learners who do enrol in VET are likely to find a relatively supportive environment. Armenia performs well in ensuring progression and successful graduation, and learners generally face a low risk of failure or repetition. The system also offers a reasonable degree of permeability. Transitions from VET to higher levels of general education are possible, and switching between VET and general pathways is easier than in many other countries. However, better implementation of the national credit system would be essential to further enhance flexibility and support lifelong learning.

The pattern of limited access is not confined to formal CVET alone. Broader adult education opportunities, including those delivered through active labour market policies, show similarly weak outcomes. This suggests that the challenges Armenia faces in reaching adult learners extend beyond the VET system and reflect systemic issues in the wider adult learning landscape.

While VET in Armenia provides a relatively supportive experience for enrolled learners, the system continues to face major challenges in attracting and reaching a broader population—especially adults. Unlocking the full potential of VET will depend on translating existing legislation into operational policies, increasing institutional capacity, and addressing access barriers across the wider adult learning ecosystem.

The Torino Process is a regular review of national systems of vocational education and training as well as adult education. It is designed to analyse the ways in which national VET systems (including adult education) address the challenges of human capital development in a lifelong learning perspective. It was established by the European Training Foundation (ETF) in 2010 and has been carried out in partner countries in Southeastern Europe, Turkey, Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean ever since.

Monitoring in the context of the Torino Process describes the extent to which countries deliver on their commitments to learners in support of their learning through life (lifelong learning - LLL) in three major areas of policy and system performance: access to learning, quality of learning, and system organisation.

Quality of learning

Quality and relevance of learning is the area of monitoring that identifies how successfully the VET system provides basic skills and key competences to both young and adult learners. It highlights the relevance of VET programmes to the world of work and how effectively VET graduates transition into the labour market. Additionally, it monitors efforts to promote excellence across key domains, including pedagogy, professional development, programme content, governance, and social inclusion, as well as the openness of the VET system to innovation in response to the evolving needs of learners and labour markets.

Lifelong learning outcomes: quality and relevance, excellence and innovation

The 2024 monitoring results for Armenia reveal both strengths and persistent challenges in quality and relevance. The system shows a solid degree of responsiveness to current and emerging labour market demands, and forward-looking themes such as the green and digital transitions are increasingly integrated into curricula—particularly with a strong focus on digitalisation. However, despite these efforts, the quality and relevance of skills delivered to learners, especially young people, remain low. This gap continues to limit the employability of both youth and adult graduates from vocational programmes.

Career guidance represents a relatively stronger area of system performance. Services appear structured and accessible, helping learners make more informed decisions about their education and career pathways. Strengthening this area further—especially by ensuring the quality and relevance of guidance tools—could enhance links between VET and the labour market and support better alignment between training choices and employment outcomes.

In recent years, Armenia has begun placing more emphasis on excellence and innovation in its strategic approach to VET. While the professional development of teachers was previously not a strong focus, new initiatives to address certification, qualifications, and continuous development mark a shift in priorities. These steps, though still early, are expected to help improve the quality of teaching and the overall learning experience in VET.

In 2024, Armenia’s VET system shows moderate responsiveness to labour market trends and increasing integration of digital and green themes. However, the quality and relevance of learning, especially for youth, remain limited and continue to affect employability. The system’s relatively strong performance in career guidance and growing commitment to excellence and teacher development offer promising foundations for improvement. Turning these intentions into tangible results will be key to strengthening VET’s contribution to skills development and economic participation in the years ahead.

System organisation

System organisation is the area of monitoring that captures performance across various domains of management and administration. It examines whether practitioners and leaders have access to data and evidence to support informed decision-making, the level of stakeholder involvement in VET governance, the quality and capacity of staff in leadership positions, and the degree of internationalisation. Additionally, monitoring the allocation of human and financial resources to the VET system helps assess whether these resources effectively support teaching, training, and learning.

System organisation: management and resourcing

The 2024 update on Armenia’s VET system highlights a number of persistent challenges that affect the overall quality and effectiveness of provision. Limited availability of reliable data, weak stakeholder engagement, and underdeveloped quality assurance mechanisms continue to undermine system accountability. While efforts are underway to address these gaps, progress is constrained by insufficient financial resources, which in turn affect infrastructure, equipment, and the availability of up-to-date learning materials.

The capacity of VET institutions to involve external stakeholders in governance remains limited, and the system does not consistently communicate how it delivers value to learners. Public awareness and engagement are low, and this lack of transparency further weakens trust in VET as a viable and high-quality education option.

Despite these limitations, Armenia demonstrates openness to international cooperation and peer learning. The country participates in several international projects, including Erasmus+ Capacity Building programmes, which offer valuable opportunities for institutional development and staff exchange. Ongoing efforts to reduce language barriers are expected to increase participation and extend the benefits of internationalisation in VET.

While performance in leadership and internationalisation is moderate in absolute terms, Armenia compares favourably to many other countries in these areas. Similarly, the management and deployment of human resources in the system is relatively efficient. However, infrastructure and material conditions remain a serious concern. Inherited and outdated buildings, substandard training materials, and low-quality textbooks point to a long-standing lack of investment. These issues continue to limit the learning environment and affect the quality of training provision.

The 2024 update confirms that VET in Armenia still faces considerable structural and resource-related challenges. While new processes have been introduced to strengthen quality assurance and monitoring, gaps in funding, infrastructure, and stakeholder engagement continue to affect system performance. On the positive side, international cooperation is helping to build capacity and raise standards. Strategic investments in teacher training and infrastructure, paired with better data and communication, will be essential for improving accountability and system effectiveness in the coming years.

Promoting access and participation in opportunities for lifelong learning

Supporting quality and relevance of lifelong learning

Index of system performance

International comparability of performance results

In addition to presenting information on system performance, the Torino Process monitoring also considers the quality and reliability of that information. It assesses how internationally comparable a country’s results are, how much they may be influenced by bias, and how critically a country reflects on its own performance. This is made possible by a methodology that keeps detailed records of the evidence behind each result—tracking where the data come from, how they were collected, and what type of sources were used. This approach is applied consistently across all countries, including Armenia.

In 2024, Armenia made no substantial progress in improving the availability of internationally comparable data. The country’s results also remain more susceptible to bias than those of many others in the monitoring sample. This is largely due to a continued reliance on qualitative or self-reported sources. Armenia tends to adopt a more self-critical stance when assessing its own VET system—more so than most other countries. While this reflective approach can be useful for internal improvements, it may also understate positive developments and make it harder to identify and promote areas of progress.