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Good practice Imported

STEP.ai — Armenia's Ministry-Accredited Three-Year AI & Machine Learning Curriculum for Secondary Schools

Armenia · Yerevan · See the Armenia profile · See the Yerevan profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 31% 60/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

A public-private consortium — Armenia's Ministry of Education, Synopsys Armenia, AGBU and the ICT employers' union — piloted a three-year AI/ML school curriculum in 6 schools; 64 students completed it in 2023–24 before a nationwide MoU expansion and 2025 ministry accreditation.

6 schools
Schools in 2023-24 pilot (2023-24)
64 students
Students who completed first course (2023-24)
15 schools
Schools joining national expansion (2025-26)
9 October 2024
MoU signing date
4 September 2025
Ministry accreditation date
STEP.ai — Armenia's Ministry-Accredited Three-Year AI & Machine Learning Curriculum for Secondary Schools

Details

Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
Synopsys Armenia / AGBU Armenian Virtual College / Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports of Armenia
Period
2022–2025
Keywords
K-12 education, public-private partnership, curriculum policy, displaced/refugee student support

Context

STEP.ai is a three-course Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning curriculum for grades 10-12 in Armenia, developed from 2022 by Synopsys Armenia together with the AGBU Armenian Virtual College, targeting general and vocational secondary schools.

Activities

During the 2023-24 pilot the curriculum ran in 6 schools — 4 in Armenia and 2 serving students resettled after the 2023 displacement from Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh — using standardised multimedia lessons and remote-learning materials for the first course, AI & Python. On 9 October 2024, Armenia's Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports and the Ministry of High-Tech Industry signed an MoU with Synopsys Armenia, AGBU and the Union of Employers of Information and Communication Technologies (UEICT) to expand the programme nationwide.

Results

64 students completed the first course during the 2023-24 pilot. Following the MoU, 15 schools joined the programme from the 2025-26 academic year, and on 4 September 2025 the Ministry formally accredited STEP.ai as a group-study elective spanning AI & Python (grade 10), Machine Learning (grade 11), and Natural Language Processing & Robotics (grade 12).

Conclusions

Published evidence covers pilot completion counts rather than standardised learning-outcome assessments, and the national scale-up to 15 schools is only in its first year, so its impact has not yet been independently verified.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k) — Not disclosed; delivered via a public-private consortium (industry-funded curriculum development, ministry-run accreditation and rollout).
Time to results
Long (> 3 years) — Developed from 2022; piloted 2023-24; MoU signed October 2024; expanded to 15 schools 2025-26; ministry-accredited September 2025.
Staffing & skills
Synopsys Armenia (curriculum developer/industry partner), AGBU Armenian Virtual College (curriculum co-developer), Armenia's Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports, Armenia's Ministry of High-Tech Industry, Union of Employers of Information and Communication Technologies (UEICT)

Conditions for success

  • Standardised multimedia lesson packages allowing delivery without specialist AI teacher training
  • Formal multi-ministry MoU and Ministry accreditation giving procedural durability
  • Explicit inclusion of schools serving displaced Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh students

Common failure modes

  • No standardised learning-outcome assessment has been published, only completion counts
  • National scale-up to 15 schools is only in its first year and unverified

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes Philanthropic / foundation funding

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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