Interview with the Executive Director of ISSA's Member from Armenia
ISSA has a conversation with Ruzanna Tsarukyan, Executive Director of the Step by Step Benevolent Foundation - Armenia (SBS BF), ISSA's national member in Armenia. SBS BF was founded in 2001 to continue and build upon the Step by Step Program which had been implemented in the country since 1998 by the Open Society Assistance Foundation-Armenia. Ruzanna talks about SBS BF's activities today and how the challenges facing Armenian education have changed over the years.
ISSA: How many people work in your organization, and what do they do?
RT: There are seven of us working in the Step by Step Benevolent Foundation-Armenia (SBS BF). Each of us is an essential part of the team and we rely on each other completely. These are our roles and responsibilities:
Ruzanna Tsarukyan - Executive Director - I am responsible for design and oversight of the strategy and action plan for all projects, including linkages, partnerships, special events, and public relations activities with local communities and ministries. I oversee and direct all the project planning and activities to ensure project objectives are met and desired impact and outcomes are achieved based on the approved proposal or contract, implementation plan, and budget. I ensure compliance of all activities with grant and contractual agreements. I supervise the work of all project and administrative staff and prepare interim and final reports. I also provide trainings in different program areas.
Marine Mkrtchyan - Senior Training Specialist - Marine is responsible for providing quality training and consultancy services within all the projects implemented by SBS BF to kindergartens, schools, and universities working with or related to the Step by Step methodology. She provides assistance to training model sites, adapts and updates training modules, and provides translation and interpretation when needed. She prepares training and consultancy reports, coordinates the Reading Corner project, and coordinates activities related to the development of Standards.
Ashkhen Gyurjyan - Leading Training Specialist - Ashken is responsible for providing quality training and consultancy services to kindergartens, schools, and universities working with or related to Step by Step methodology. She is responsible for development of training model sites, and coordination of the publication and distribution of SbS manuals and training materials. Ashken also manages grants, monitoring grant reports from Training Centers.
Aramais Pashinyan - Financial Manager - Aramais is responsible for Foundation-related expenses and financial transactions, financial reporting and compliance; analysis and management of the overall SBS BF budget; and consultations and training workshops to SBS BF staff.
Aleksan Movsisyan is our Office Manager and driver. Aleksan organizes and oversees the logistics, procurement, office security, and maintenance. He also serves in the capacity of office driver. Susanna Sargsyan is our cashier and Program Assistant, and Zaven Navoyan is our part-time Manager of Information Systems.
ISSA: What does a typical week in your
organization look like?
RT: Every Friday we have a short staff meeting where we discuss what has been done during the week and what we need to do in the upcoming week. We usually have different activities at different times: trainings, planning with TC trainers, report writing, classroom observations, etc. So, based on what has been planned for the week, every program staff member prepares for the activities which they are responsible for.
We usually are very busy, but we are not overwhelmed by the work. We usually help each other and share the workload with the person who is under the most pressure at the moment.
ISSA: What are the main projects your organization is working on right now?
RT: Currently we implement the following projects:
- Implementation of Early Learning and Development Standards (ELDS) for ages 5-6 and Development of Early Learning Development Standards for 3-5, activities which are funded by UNICEF and fully supported by the Ministry of Education of Armenia.
- Community Based Education and Getting Ready for School
- Publishing of Reading Corner books
- Standards Training for Preschool Teachers, funded by SOS Kinderdorf
- Step by Step in the region of Armavir co-funded by Children of Armenia Fund
- Action to Children in Poverty, funded by the Swiss organization ASED (Action de soutien al'Enfance Demunie)
- Helping Children in Extremely Difficult Circumstances, funded by World Vision
- Step by Step for Arzakan kindergartens, funded by the local community and Save the Children
ISSA: Can you tell us more about how SBS BF has been involved in developing Early Learning and Development Standards in Armenia?
RT: We (SBS BF) have been working on the ELDS initiative since 2006, when we were funded by UNICEF and supported by the Ministry of Education and Science (MOES) to create ELDS for ages 5-6. ELDS, which provides benchmarks for developmental skills and abilities children should achieve by specific ages, are particularly important now in Armenia, as we have shifted from a 10-year to a 12-year schooling system.
Our initial project was to develop the ELDS for ages 5-6 with the help of international experts and support from UNICEF, and based on leading international research. The next step was content validation to ensure the ELDS developed were appropriate for Armenia. This was an extremely labor-intensive, comprehensive, and inclusive process, involving review and feedback from families, teachers, and education authorities and experts from across the country. Based on this work, the MOES and the National Institute of Education have developed a new, improved preschool curriculum which reflects ELDS and developed new teacher manuals to go with the curriculum - a very important development, since many schools did not have any methodological resources which postdated the early 90s. We are currently in the process, again with funding from UNICEF and the support of the Ministry, of implementing the ELDS for ages 5-6. SBS BF has developed a 4-day training module with all necessary observation forms to train preschool teachers and EC representatives to use the ELDS 5-6 to improve teaching practices.
We are pleased that the success of our work with ELDS 5-6 has led to a new project of development of ELDS for ages 3-4, which we are working on right now. In addition, UNICEF has recognized our staff's expertise with ELDS and used them as co-trainers in other countries beginning the process of ELDS, most recently Georgia and Tajikistan. We are very thankful for the support of UNICEF in this process.
ISSA: I understand that SBS BF was one of the first organizations to pilot and adapt ISSA's Community Based Education and Getting Ready for School projects. Can you tell us more about this project, how it is implemented by your organization currently, and why it is relevant for Armenia?
RT: In 2002 of the number of social problems concerning young children in Armenia, of utmost importance are the problems of education of young children who do not attend kindergartens. While young children and their families face many pressing needs, the lack of school readiness of children entering primary school was regarded by the Ministry of Education as a critical unmet need.
The Case Study on Parental Education carried out in 2004 by UNICEF and the Early Childhood Development in Armenia study carried out by MOES and World Bank in 2005 documented an urgent need for an expanded range of quality services and strategies for parents. Official statistics show that overall more than 75% of Armenian children do not have access to preschool services.
We launched our community-based education and preparation for school project in Armenia in 2003. Through our 11 training centers and 10 model sites, SBS BF provided quality educational services for families unable to send their children to kindergarten. The program supports the development of high quality alternative approaches to reaching greater numbers of children who do not attend kindergarten and organizing their education outside the formal educational setting. This initiative ensures that children from poor and marginalized families get the best possible start in life and have access to quality basic preschool education in a safe and supportive environment. The program assists socially disadvantaged families in different regions of Armenia to acquire knowledge, skills, and experience to meet the educational needs of their children in a home-based environment.
Through monthly workshops for parents, our staff and trainers have introduced families to home based curriculum materials to help them prepare children to arrive at school ready and motivated to learn. Each family participating in the project received monthly parent and child materials. The parent materials include information on how to use the children's materials, additional activities to do with the child, a brief note on the concepts covered, and suggestions for extension activities.
Our trained parent facilitators implemented at least one monthly parent group meeting. The purpose of these meetings was to review the previous month's activities and introduce and distribute new materials. Additional group meetings, home visits, and open sessions were organized as needed. Parent facilitators and parents were also responsible for completing monthly evaluation forms. In 2007, due to scarcity of financial resources, only 5 Step by Step sites were implementing the project in 5 different regions of Armenia. Each center worked with 25-30 families.
In addition to the above initiative in the field of parental education, SBS BF works with UNICEF in an Integrated Early Childhood Development project. Along with nutrition, health, first aid, and physiological components, the project has a learning component covering ages 0-6. From 2004 to 2007, SBS BF worked with 16 resource centers established by UNICEF. SBS BF conducted trainings of trainers on parental education for parent facilitators, and provided consultancy, co-training, and modeling for the staff of resource centers. The project helped those resource centers to upgrade their knowledge and improve the quality of services they provided for families. Within the project framework the following resource books were develop for parents and facilitators:
- 1. TOT module to train parent facilitators
- 2. Facilitators guidebook for planning and conducting parent meetings
- 3. Parents' Resource Book for reinforcing and deepening parents' knowledge in quality care and education.
ISSA: What challenges do you find your organization facing today, and how are these different than the challenges you faced when your organization began working on SbS?
RT: When we started to implement Step by Step, the challenges we were facing differed greatly from current challenges. There was a strong resistance from different educational bodies toward child-centered methodology. They were very critical of "Step by Step," especially at the school level.
Now, the environment is more favorably inclined towards child-centered approaches. Our organization enjoys high popularity in the country. The MOES and other local and international organizations trust us; they use our intellectual and human resources while developing new projects and documents.
Today, instead of facing programmatic and philosophical challenges our organization faces the challenges of finding and maintaining the financial and human resources to provide all of the services we wish we could provide. For example, we would very much like to develop and maintain an interactive website which could be used to provide teachers, parents, and others a place to access all of the resources available and to keep informed of new developments in early childhood development and education. However, the existing projects do not provide the finances or time for our staff to create such a resource.
ISSA: Over the past ten years, how has field of early childhood education and care changed in your country? Have strengths in the system which existed 10 years ago been maintained? Have weaknesses been improved? In what ways?
RT: There were very little systemic strengths that could
be transferred into this new system. So it is difficult to talk about
the maintenance of strengths.
As for weaknesses, we still see the following problems in the field of
early childhood education:
- Insufficient preschool services, low quality of services, and lack of access for children of poor families;
- Low levels of enrollment, especially in rural areas (8.1% in average);
- Old preschool curricula and outdated methods. Insufficient activities aimed at introduction of child-centered approaches;
- Morally and physically obsolete educational base of preschool institutions;
- Scarcity of financial resources and limited community budgets;
- Large gap between the ideal and the reality of parents' knowledge and skills relative to early childhood development and preschool education;
- Lack of parent and community initiatives;
- Insufficient alternative low-cost preschool services
On the other hand, over the past ten years, particularly during last three years, there has been significant improvement in the country in the field of ECD. To promote educational reforms in Armenia, the government has adopted different laws, decrees, procedures, and other regulatory documents. Among those documents were: the Education Law (1999), National Standards for General Education (2000), National Program for Education Development 2001-2005 (2001), The National Curriculum Framework for General Education (2004), Development Program of RA Preschool Education (2000), Development Concept and Strategy of RA Preschool Education (2004), and the Preschool Education Reform Strategy in Armenia (2005). Many changes are still underway. The draft version of the 2006-2015 Program is ready and is currently undergoing substantial revisions.
In this context, the work of SBS BF in cooperation with different organizations has produced nationwide visible impact. Communities have begun to value the existence of kindergartens and to treat them not only as a space where care is provided but also as institutions that provide educational services. Some communities have allocated additional staff of family coordinators to Step by Step kindergartens, and in some regions this practice has extended to expansion kindergartens. In light of the fact that communities have very limited budgets and no special budget lines for the kindergartens, this is serious evidence that approaches are being changed for the better.
In addition, of course, it is very significant that the Government of Armenia has completely supported the process of Early Learning Development Standards, signaling its seriousness in creating quality early education experiences for all Armenian children.
