Armenia to adopt Estonia's Future School Program to empower school leaders and teaching staff

The initiative will introduce the Future School Program, which is widely used by principals in Estonia, to school leaders in the Armenian education system. The Armenian version of this training programme was developed in cooperation with Tallinn University and the National Center for Education Development and Innovation (NCEDI) of Armenia, and is aimed at improving the leadership skills of school principals and administrative teams.

The Armenian education system faces several challenges, including a lack of professional development for teachers, especially with regard to modern teaching methodologies, a lack of cooperation between school principals and the teaching staff, and unclear priorities in national education management. Armenia is also struggling with a teacher shortage and the departure of early-career teachers to other professions.

The Future School Program, launched at Tallinn University in 2017, applies a unique approach to school leadership, focusing on developing the school as a whole and empowering teachers. It helps schools reshape their internal culture to support learning and quality teaching.

At the launch event today in Yerevan, Riina Stahl, the head of Cooperation at the Academy of Educational Leadership at Tallinn University, said that the Future School Program is focused on three main pillars: co-creation, shared leadership and evidence-based learning.

"We are not coming to Armenia to offer ready-made solutions. We are working together with the school leaders and teachers here to find solutions that take into account their own cultural space. At the heart of every school's cultural change is the learner; our question is always what this change actually does for the child's learning and development. Real development occurs when school management teams translate ideas born in seminars into everyday activities. School families search for and test new solutions together. This is how lasting change is created and reaches every classroom and every learner," said Stahl.

The initiative aims to provide training to at least twenty Armenian school leaders to strengthen their management competencies and increase their readiness to implement learner-centred, modern leadership practices. It also aims to improve the knowledge and skills of teachers in five Armenian schools through evidence-based change management and shared leadership.

Participants have been selected in cooperation with NCEDI and the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport of Armenia.

"Our cooperation in Armenia focuses on ensuring that schools support the development of every child," said Kristi Kulu, ESTDEV's programme manager for Education. "When school leaders and teachers gain the confidence and skills to create change, it directly reaches the learners. This is where the real value of education is born, in the skills and opportunities that children will take with them throughout their lives."

This project represents the next step in ESTDEV's cooperation with Armenia. Building on our previous support for the professional development of teachers in 2023 and the implementation of educational reforms in 2024, we now focus on the next stage, which centres on school leaders as key figures in driving change.

Ensuring quality education in priority countries is one of the central goals of Estonian development cooperation. In supporting the Armenian education sector, Estonia relies on its internationally recognised expertise. ESDTEV has implemented 10 education projects in Armenia.