ARF Bureau member and Hayastan faction MP Lilit Galstyan has sharply criticized the Armenian government’s education policies following the publication of the OECD’s PISA 2025 results, arguing that the findings expose what she described as the failure of the government’s much-promoted education reforms.

In a post addressing the results, Galstyan said the figures published on September 8 came as a “cold shower” and revealed the true state of Armenia’s education system.

PISA, the OECD’s international student assessment program, evaluates how effectively 15-year-old students can apply their knowledge in mathematics, reading and science to real-life situations.

According to the figures cited by Galstyan, only 19 percent of Armenian students reached the minimum proficiency level in reading. The corresponding figures were 28 percent in mathematics and 26 percent in science.

Galstyan drew particular attention to Armenia’s performance compared with neighboring countries. She said Georgia and Azerbaijan performed better than Armenia across all three categories in terms of the share of students reaching minimum proficiency levels.

The gap was particularly significant in reading, according to Galstyan, with 19 percent of Armenian students reaching the minimum level compared with 39 percent in Georgia and 35 percent in Azerbaijan.

Galstyan argued that Armenia recorded the lowest results in the region, including compared with Turkey, across all three areas.

“This disastrous picture speaks to the ineffectiveness of the country’s education policy, or more accurately, its fiasco,” Galstyan wrote.

She contrasted the results with the substantial increase in government spending on education over the past five years. Citing Finance Ministry figures, Galstyan said education expenditures increased from approximately 149 billion drams in 2021 to 300 billion drams in 2025.

According to Galstyan, the increased spending has failed to produce corresponding improvements in educational outcomes.

She also criticized several of the government’s flagship education initiatives, including school construction, new textbooks, teacher certification, the Academic City project and repeated changes to the management and legal framework of the education system.

Galstyan argued that building schools and holding ribbon-cutting ceremonies should not be confused with improving the quality of education.

“Cutting the ribbon at an educational institution does not amount to knowledge or effective management, much less serve as a guarantee of a competitive education policy,” she wrote.

The ARF Bureau member also accused the government of ignoring proposals from education experts because they do not belong to the ruling political team.

“A sector cannot be managed and policy cannot be developed through slogans, empty grandstanding, superficial understanding and an attitude that rejects dissenting views,” Galstyan said, arguing that the PISA results demonstrate the consequences of that approach.

She said the Armenian public is ultimately paying the price for what she characterized as “amateurish and populist experiments” and foreign-imposed agendas in education.

Galstyan called for those responsible for managing Armenia’s education system over the past eight years to be held accountable, including for what she described as the ineffective use of the education budget.

“Festivals, all kinds of drinking festivities and the beating of drums cannot conceal this crisis-ridden and shameful picture,” she wrote.

Galstyan concluded by saying the public also has a right to know why several deputy ministers in Armenia’s Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports were recently dismissed.