03 Nov 2016
At a recent ceremony in Yerevan, certificates were awarded to the first students in Armenia to take the Araratian Baccalaureate (AB), a new Armenian-language qualification produced in partnership with Cambridge Assessment International Education. The AB is taken in Armenian and is designed to help students gain access to international universities.
Since the beginning of 2015, Cambridge Assessment International Education has been working with the Ayb Foundation in Armenia to provide internationally recognised qualifications in Armenian for mathematics, biology, chemistry and physics. These qualifications form part of the new AB offered by the Araratian Baccalaureate Examinations Centre (ABEC). Over the next few years Cambridge will work with ABEC to build capacity, so that the ABEC team can gradually take over the processes of creating high-quality assessment materials as well as marking and grading the results.
The UK's national agency for the recognition and comparison of international qualifications and skills (NARIC) has found the AB comparable to Cambridge Assessment International Education A Levels and the US Advanced Placement.
Director of Armenia’s National Program for Educational Excellence, Fr. Mesrop Aramian, said: 'Henceforward, Armenian schoolchildren will be able to take international exams in Armenian and based on their results they will be able to get admitted to top universities around the world or be granted credits in those universities.'
Dan Bray, Deputy Director of Assessment at Cambridge Assessment International Education, said: 'The new AB assessments match the high standards and quality reflected in Cambridge Assessment International Education’ own qualifications. This has already been a hugely successful relationship and I expect that this will result in even more opportunities for Armenian students in the future.'