Today, the Chancellor of the Pedagogical University Rouben Mirzakhanyan had a meeting with the Representative of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Armenia, Ms.
Henriette Ahrense and the Disaster Risk Reduction Project Officer of the UNICEF in Armenia. Current meeting announced the beginning for the collaboration of the Pedagogical University and the United Nations Children’s Fund.
First of all, Henriette Ahrense thanked for the warm welcome and introduced the Chancellor with the Project “Support to Reducing the Disaster Risk in Vulnerable Communities and Establishments in the South Caucasia”.
In the past, the Pedagogical University developed particular cooperation with the United Nations Children’s Fund in respect with inclusive education development and various other projects within that field.
“On this occasion, we are willing to cooperate with the Pedagogical University through an expanded programme, which assumes raising the extent of awareness among teachers and pupils from different schools about reduction of disaster risks /DRR/ with the help of a diversity of methods and projects,” said the representative of the United Nations Children’s Fund.
Further on, emphasizing the important role of the Pedagogical University, the UNICEF DRR Officer Tigran Tovmasyan mentioned, “In all our projects, we strongly focus on the idea of continuity and do our best to improve the level of teaching capabilities, knowledge and raise the value system of teachers, working in the field of DRR education. In this perspective the Pedagogical University is the most essential link as it is responsible for preparing and training teachers in Armenia.
After learning all this, the students of the Pedagogical University, will be ready to enter schools and to inform children about the preparedness for disasters and risk reduction. As a result, disaster stability culture will be formed among the pupils and in our country on the whole.
The DRR Officer put in that he expected effective collaboration that would further strengthen more.
Afterwards, the activities fulfilled within the scope of the project “Support to Reducing the Disaster Risk in Vulnerable Communities and Establishments in the South Caucasia” in
2012/2013 were also introduced.
In fact, the main directions of the project are to support introduction of the DRR into the education policy and academic courses, contribute to the development of training materials, teachers’ trainings, as well as the development of necessary abilities, pilot them at schools, create a number of new models, and to further stimulate their spreading and distribution.
In his turn, the Chancellor Mirzakhanyan outlined the importance of introduction of the DRR into the field of education. “Our country is in an active seismic location, and thus, I focus great importance on bringing this project in the education field. In the last years, the University has been paying particular attention to the reduction of disaster risks, as a result of which the Department for First Medical Aid, Emergency Situations and Civil Protection and the Faculty of Special Education were established. In fact, this cooperation may serve as a good start for the joint activities and work of the Pedagogical University and the UNICE.”
More to the point, the Chancellor also noticed that in the recent years the University had recorded a considerable growth in the direction of international cooperation focusing the attention on its collaboration with the leading pedagogical University of Oulu in Finland. “I am glad to mention that we have already made quite a serious sowing; so now it’s time for us to water it and in a couple of years we may start harvesting,” Rouben Mirzakhanyan stated.
To conclude, after the meeting the guests also had a chance to visit the University’s new 3D museum and got familiar with a number of changes at the University.
