On September 11, 2026, a memorandum of cooperation was signed at Vanadzor’s “Evrika” school (VANADZOR SPECIALIZED SCHOOL WITH IN-DEPTH LEARNING OF MATHEMATICS AND NATURAL SCIENCES State Non-Commercial Organization (SNCO)) between “NGO Center” Civil Society Development NGO and “Evrika” school. The memorandum was signed by the organization’s president, Arpine Hakobyan, and the acting director of Evrika school, Julietta Hovsepyan.
The document defines the framework of cooperation between the Parties for the pilot implementation of the “School Participatory Budgeting” (SPB) program at the school. This is the first time in the Republic of Armenia that school participatory budgeting will be practically implemented in a general education school.
SPB is a program in which students themselves get involved in the process of making decisions on the allocation of part of the school’s budget: they identify the needs of the school or the community, develop and present their own projects, draw up a realistic budget, vote, and implement the winning initiatives. The program is aimed at developing students’ civic engagement, responsibility, initiative, teamwork, and financial literacy skills.
The program has been approved for use by an order of the RA Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport, and will be implemented on a pilot basis at Evrika school during the 2026-2027 academic year.
Under the memorandum, throughout the pilot period, NGO Center will provide the school with the necessary methodological and expert support, educational guidelines and materials, and will organize capacity-building trainings for the school’s administration, teachers, committee members, and students, as well as support the organization of all stages of the program idea presentation, project development, public presentations, voting, funding, and reporting.
In the coming weeks, the preparatory phase of the program will begin at Evrika school formation of SPB teams and capacity-building trainings.
This program has been developed and is being implemented by “NGO Center” Civil Society Development NGO using its own resources.