Education Governance and Decentralization Reforms Discussed with the Deputy Mayor of Yerevan Yerevan Municipality

13-07-2026 - 13-07-2026

As part of the "Support to Decentralisation and Local Self-Government Reforms in Armenia" (DeaLoG) project, representatives of the Municipality of Västervik, the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR), and SALAR International visited Armenia from 29 June to 3 July 2026.

The delegation included Andreas Biltorp, Chair of the Children and Education Committee of the Municipality of Västervik; Jörgen Jonsson, Head of the Primary and Lower Secondary Schools Division of the Municipality of Västervik; Stefan Mallen and Daniel Berr, Education Experts at SALAR; and Magnus Liljeström, Senior Adviser at SALAR International.

As part of the visit, on 3 July, the delegation was received by Levon Hovhannisyan, Deputy Mayor of Yerevan. The meeting was also attended by officials from the General Education Department of the Yerevan Municipality Staff.

The Deputy Mayor welcomed the Swedish delegation and emphasized the importance of learning from international experience and exchanging best practices in the fields of decentralization and local self-government reforms. He then presented the current state of education governance within the competencies of the Yerevan Municipality and provided an overview of the city's general education system and its key indicators.

The meeting focused on the ongoing education governance reforms in the Republic of Armenia and a range of issues related to the management of the education sector. According to the Deputy Mayor, Yerevan has a unique role in school governance, backed by extensive practical experience and institutional capacity, which could be taken into consideration in the further implementation of school governance decentralization initiatives.

Mr. Hovhannisyan also presented the Municipality's position on decentralization, particularly with regard to education governance and fiscal decentralization. Due to time constraints, the participants agreed to continue discussions on fiscal and education sector reforms at a technical level with the DeaLoG project team.

The purpose of the visit was to facilitate the exchange of experience in education governance and to strengthen the capacities of the municipalities and schools participating in Armenia's pilot initiative on the decentralization of general education management.

The discussions also focused on the "Governing Together" methodology implemented in Swedish municipalities and explored its potential application within Armenia's ongoing decentralization and education reform process.