Armenia

The government should review its policies in education and employment to identify areas where women are disadvantaged and work on new programmes to support their participation in continuing training and employment, particularly for those women who face multiple barriers to employment. The government should work with employers to identify and eliminate pay discrimination.

Regional enterprise resource centres should be established to provide informal enterprises with access to information and advice on how to access potential markets for their products and services and to support their participation in training.

Managerial competence impacts directly on the labour market because it affects the ability of firms to recruit, sustain and develop staff.

The business community should support community education programmes for entrepreneurs. They should focus on providing information and guidance, including

mentoring and/or one-to-one interaction

better use of business networks and local cooperation

the use of cutting-edge computer and communications technologies to deliver management development assistance to small enterprise owners and managers, along with more flexible education and development systems, such as open learning

Policy should target informal enterprises in rural areas to provide support measures which strengthen their abilities to cooperate and share resources.

Teachers need to acquire new functions and skills. The Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport should launch a sector qualification framework for teachers. It should bring all secondary education professionals together into an integrated career structure that facilitates transfer and career progression. It should incorporate new and emerging human capital professions such as mentors, assessors and workplace trainers.

In cooperation with other relevant business stakeholders, the ministry should:

• Help teachers of VET schools acquire new knowledge (to update and upgrade their skills);
• Help employees of private companies obtain training so they can support learners;
• Expand career guidance services for students to better inform them of career opportunities

The Armenian Qualification Framework should be fully implemented. Among other things, it should be used to help bolster quality assurance for vocational education and training programmes, in particular those offered by private and non-for-profit training providers.

Promote work-based learning in more schools and companies. These should focus on various target groups, such as young people and adults. The national regulation on work-based learning should be adopted, and supporting tools and instruments should be developed. Priority should be given to the training and employment of business relations coordinators, one from each vocational school. Lessons learned from successful donor-projects should be made available other vocational schools.

The current policy advisory structures for employment and training should be reviewed to identify the strengths and weakness of existing structures in the context of VET and employment policies. This should include the role that could be played by employers in the implementation of the framework. Partnerships should take account of four main types of relations that need to be improved. These are:

Relations between public authorities and agencies (e.g. the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Labour, and others with responsibility for skill development, such as those in charge of rural and business policies).

Public Private Partnerships related to the management and guidance of VET and the coordination and implementation of continuing vocational training. This would include the expected national qualification framework.

National and local partnerships that connect local and regional organizations with national authorities.

Private and private partnerships, e.g. between companies and representative 'business management organisations' particularly at the sectoral level.

The government should work with the private and non-government sector to accelerate the development of an industry-led continuing vocational sector