YEREVAN. – In line with the 2017 State Budget draft, about 128.7 billion drams (about $270,288,000) will be allocated to the education sector of Armenia.

The First Deputy Minister of Finance, Atom Janjughazyan, stated the aforementioned at Friday’s National Assembly committees’ hearings on the draft state budget for next year.

In his words, this figure makes up 2.4 percent of the country’s GDP.

“In essence, there are no changes, as compared to 2016, in the volume of spending envisioned for the education sector,” noted Janjughazyan. “42.1 billion drams [(about $88,416,000)] will be allocated to the programs implemented by the Ministry of Education and Science, [and] which is 555 million-drams [(about $1,165,500)] less than last year’s indicator.”  

As per the deputy minister of finance, the decrease is due to the reduction in the number of programs that are implemented in Armenia with external assistance.