Armenia, CERD/C/ARM/CO/5-6

15. While commending the efforts undertaken by the State party in the area of education for national minorities, including the provision of education in their languages and courses on their native languages and literature, the Committee regrets that effective enjoyment of the right to education is not guaranteed for all children from national minorities and other vulnerable groups, such as refugees and asylum-seekers, and that very few of them achieve higher education despite the implementation of measures such as affording priority to candidates from national minorities who have passed the university entry exams. (art. 5)

The Committee encourages the State party to strengthen efforts to ensure effective access to education and calls on the State party to: (a) Expand the implementation of the sample curriculum of general education schools of national minorities and the training of national minorities’ teachers;
(b) Consider providing language support in pre-school education in areas with compact minority population so as to facilitate the integration of minority pupils into mainstream education;
(c) Increase efforts to promote access to higher education for children from national minorities and other vulnerable groups. The Committee also requests the State party to provide detailed information, including disaggregated statistics on enrolment in primary, secondary and higher education of members of national minorities and other vulnerable groups in its next periodic report.