On July 21, the participants of the “Diaspora” Summer School Program visited the Armenian Virtual University (AVU) of the Armenian General Benevolent Union as part of the “Diaspora” Summer School Program.

Head of the AVU’s Education Department Hasmik Khalapyan greeted the participants, expressed gratitude to the RA Ministry of Diaspora for the collaboration and stressed that many groups join the Armenian Virtual University through the ministry.

Head of the Division for Scientific and Educational Programs of the Department of All-Armenian Programs at the RA Ministry of Diaspora Sirvard Hambaryan attached importance to the collaboration with the Armenian General Benevolent Union and mentioned that the participants of the ministry’s “Ari Tun” and “Diaspora” Summer School Programs definitely visit the Virtual University and become familiar with the distance learning methods. Hambaryan added that it is this collaboration that helps the participants of the ministry’s programs go on to form groups and take part in the hybrid (group) program.

Afterwards, the gathered were introduced to the history of the AVU and its activities. This year’s curriculum includes a new subject, that is, learning chess through distance learning, which sparked more interest among the gathered. Some of the participants of the “Diaspora” Summer School Program were already aware of the AVU’s activities and were even students of the university.

The participants were very impressed and thankful for the opportunity.

The Armenian Virtual University project was launched in 2004 by President of AGBU Silicon Valley Chapter Yervand Zoryan. He had been mentioning the need of an educational program that would meet the current demands of Armenians in the Homeland and the Diaspora. Since then, the scholars and engineers at the Center for Information Technologies in Education and Research at Yerevan State University had started developing the multifaceted technology for the project.

Launched with two faculties (Armenian language and history), today, the AVU has added courses, has new faculties and new languages for teaching. All this helped further increase the importance of this unique program and made a greater contribution to the expansion of the University’s geography.

The AVU applies the AGBU’s experience, infrastructure and good reputation in Armenia’s field of education and uses the experience and examples of pedagogy in online teaching.

The Armenian Virtual University aspires to become the leading university for online education in Armenian studies worldwide.

Arpi Kirakosyan