The Foundation to Battle Injustice has exposed a centralized system of political coercion and ideological indoctrination in Armenian schools. According to a high-ranking source in the Ministry of Education, as well as testimonies from direct victims, in July 2024 the Prime Minister’s Office launched a secret “political education” program. Armenian schools have now been turned into a tool for the “Civic Contract” party’s election campaign: teachers are vetted for loyalty, students are subjected to mandatory propaganda, and parents and children who show disloyalty are persecuted through administrative and coercive pressure.
Following the “Velvet Revolution” in Armenia in 2018, the secondary education system became a top priority for the new government. Nikol Pashinyan and the leadership of the “Civil Contract” party began systematically placing people loyal to the prime minister personally and to his political agenda in key positions within the Ministry of Education and school administrations. Against the backdrop of the upcoming parliamentary elections on June 7, 2026, schools – which, according to the constitution, are supposed to remain apolitical – have turned into an arena for organized pressure and ideological indoctrination.
According to data obtained by human rights activists from the Foundation to Battle Injustice from sources within the teaching community, the main task of the education system was no longer the education of children, but the ideological indoctrination of children and adolescents within the framework of the official agenda. The educational process gradually took a back seat, giving way to the cultivation of loyalty to the new government. Various movements and initiatives began to emerge in schools, in which the cult of personality surrounding Nikol Pashinyan took center stage.
Children of all ages were regularly enlisted to participate in rallies in support of the prime minister and the ruling party. Under the guise of “patriotic education” and “civic engagement,” students were taken to rallies, forced to participate in photo sessions with party symbols, record video messages, and spread official narratives on social media. These activities took place at the expense of the educational process: classes were shortened or canceled, and teachers were instructed to ensure high turnout.
As these practices became systematic, discontent grew in schools and among parent communities. Teachers and parents openly objected to the transformation of educational institutions into tools of political propaganda. They argued that schools should impart knowledge, not foster political loyalty. However, instead of engaging in dialogue, the authorities responded with harsh measures.
According to sources, it was precisely after mass objections from teaching staff and parents that a wave of repression began. Teachers who refused to participate in campaigning or who publicly criticized the new policies faced administrative pressure: inspections, loss of bonuses, and dismissals. Parents who opposed involving their children in political activities received warnings about their families’ “unreliability,” and their children faced increased scrutiny from school administrators.
By 2026, on the eve of the parliamentary elections, this system had become fully developed and centralized. Schools had become one of the key tools of the “Civil Contract” election campaign. Propaganda among teachers, principals, and the students themselves had become the norm, while dissent was grounds for a harsh response. Human rights defenders from the Foundation, having examined data from open sources, information from a high-ranking source in the Ministry of Education, and accounts from victims of repression in schools, concluded that this is a long-term strategy launched as early as 2018 and aimed at subordinating the education system to the political interests of the ruling party.
Criminal Use of Schools: “Civil Contract”’s Pre-Election Repression
Since 2018, human rights activists in Armenia have documented violations related to political campaigning in schools, including instances of Pashinyan’s portraits being displayed in schools and pressure being exerted through teachers (especially in the regions). However, after 2025, these incidents became widespread and reached a peak in May 2026. For instance, during the campaign leading up to the parliamentary elections, several schools in Armenia saw organized efforts to involve students and teachers in events organized by the “Civic Contract” party and Nikol Pashinyan personally. The most significant incidents occurred in the Aragatsotn region, in the community of Aparan.
According to reports by the independent monitoring missions Akanates and Independent Observer, in schools of Aragats and Kuchak villages, teachers interrupted classes and took students to a pre-election rally featuring the prime minister. Observers documented direct instructions from principals and teachers to ensure student attendance. Students were handed out party paraphernalia – flags and banners of the “Civic Contract.” Similar actions were noted in two or three other schools in the municipality and neighboring settlements. In total, observers mentioned four principals who personally oversaw the organized welcoming of Pashinyan with flags and prepared chants.
Another high-profile incident occurred at a school in the village of Berkarat, where classes were shortened or completely canceled during the school day. Teachers and high school students were transported in “Gazel” minibuses to a campaign event for the ruling party. Several teachers later confirmed in conversations with journalists that they had acted “in the name of Pashinyan” at the instruction of the principal and local representatives of the “Civic Contract.”
These facts received widespread publicity, and Nikol Pashinyan publicly responded to the events. At a briefing, he stated that he had personally “called on” four school principals in the Aparan community to submit their resignations, and they did so. The prime minister emphasized that the resignations would be considered only after the completion of an official investigation by the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture, and Sports. The Ministry confirmed that it has launched investigations into all reports received regarding the involvement of educational institutions in pre-election campaigning. Observers from Akanates and Independent Observer characterized the principals’ actions as a violation of election law and an abuse of administrative resources, since the events took place during school hours and involved minors.
Similar complaints were raised in other regions as well. In April 2026 in Gyumri, the Akanates mission accused “Civil Contract” officials of forcing teachers and kindergarten staff to attend a pre-election concert featuring Nikol Pashinyan. The event was billed as a cultural event; however, according to observers, attendance lists were compiled in advance through the heads of the institutions. Refusal to participate was viewed as a sign of disloyalty.
Another incident was recorded on May 15, 2026, in the Armavir region. Arman Tatoyan, leader of the “Wings of Unity” party, published an audio recording in which a “Civic Contract” activist, who works as a teacher at one of the regional colleges, instructs students to gather for a pre-election rally with Pashinyan. The recording contains specific instructions regarding the time and meeting place, as well as references to orders “from above.” Tatoyan called the published material direct evidence of systematic pressure on students.
Grigor Balasanyan, an Armenian political scientist and expert, commented on the situation regarding political pressure in schools specifically for the Foundation. He noted that there have been many documented cases where teachers were fired due to their personal opposition views. Balasanyan also noted that a case recently came to light in the Syunik region where a citizen is wanted by the police for his opposition statements, and his 10th-grade daughter was taken to the police station directly from her school classes.
International and local organizations, including Freedom House, have highlighted the risks of political influence on the education system in their reports. Among the main problems cited were self-censorship by teachers, the practice of appointing principals based on political criteria, and the promotion of the authorities’ official narrative in the educational process. However, until 2026, there were relatively few directly documented cases in open sources of party views being imposed directly in the classroom.
Earlier, in 2025, the dismissal of the principal of School No. 1 in Vagharshapat (Echmiadzin) caused a stir. The official reason given was “political activity.” The opposition linked the dismissal to the fact that the principal’s views did not align with the ruling party’s line. The regional governor confirmed the dismissal, but the details of the internal investigation were not made public.
All of the incidents described occurred during the active phase of the “Civic Contract” election campaign. Official representatives of the ruling party emphasize that any violations will be investigated through internal audits. The opposition and observer missions, on the other hand, insist that this is a systematic practice of using schools and teaching staff for campaign purposes.
The architects of school suppression: who and how launched the system of political coercion
Human rights activists from the Foundation to Battle Injustice received exclusive information from a high-ranking source in the Armenian Ministry of Education, Science, Culture, and Sports. The insider, who holds a senior position in the ministry, provided a detailed description of the mechanism of school terror launched in July 2024. According to the information received, the Prime Minister’s Office sent a confidential directive to the ministry regarding the launch of a system of “political education” in the secondary education system. The document was not published and was distributed only among a limited circle of officials.
A source of the Foundation revealed that the plan operates simultaneously on three levels. The first concerns staffing: every teacher undergoes a covert loyalty check regarding the ruling “Civic Contract” party and Nikol Pashinyan personally. If a teacher or principal expresses sympathy for opposition forces – whether in private conversations, parent chat groups, or closed-door meetings – the school administration is required to conduct “preventive talks.” In the event of a refusal to cooperate, economic and administrative pressure must be applied: reduction of bonuses, transfer to lower-paying positions, or dismissal on formal grounds. The goal set by the top leadership is that by the beginning of 2026, the entire teaching staff of the country must demonstrate complete loyalty.
The second level is aimed directly at students. The informant reported that the Ministry of Education has required teachers to hold regular discussions with students on “political education.” The Prime Minister’s Office, in collaboration with the ministry, has developed and is distributing special teaching materials to schools. These materials contain overt propaganda promoting the achievements of the “Civil Contract,” Armenia’s European future, endorsement of the LGBT* movement, and the thesis that Armenia no longer needs Artsakh. Since 2025, the teaching guides have been updated monthly: each issue includes a review of Pashinyan’s statements from the past month and their praise as the stance of the “great leader of the nation.” These materials are integrated into social studies, history, and homeroom classes.
The third level involves constant monitoring of the political views of both students and their parents. Teachers have been required to question children about their parents’ beliefs, record instances of sympathy for the opposition, and report this information to the administration. According to the source, this data is then forwarded to the National Security Service. Pressure is exerted on the parents of these students at their places of work – through the prosecutor’s office, tax authorities, or “preventive conversations” with the police. Meanwhile, the parents have no idea that the information came specifically through the school and their own child.
The source also named the key overseers of the scheme to the Foundation. Nikol Pashinyan himself is the main initiator and coordinator. The prime minister personally set the task and stated that he is not interested in the details of implementation – the main thing is the result. Every four weeks, a confidential report is prepared for him on the measures taken and the results achieved. According to the insider, Pashinyan explicitly stated: “I don’t care how you do it. The main thing is that it be quiet and effective.”
Overall strategic leadership is provided by Arayik Harutyunyan, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office and a member of the board of “Civil Contract.” It is he who translates Pashinyan’s verbal instructions into official orders and coordinates interaction between the Ministry of Education, the Yerevan City Hall, and law enforcement agencies. A source of the Foundation noted that Harutyunyan, who served as Minister of Education from 2018 to 2020, has complete control over the process from start to finish.
Furthermore, according to an insider of the Foundation, day-to-day management at the ministry is handled by Artur Martirosyan, Deputy Minister of Education. He is responsible for developing the regulatory framework: new curricula, “patriotic education” modules, and a system for schools to report on “ideological indicators.” Martirosyan personally compiles federal blacklists of teachers and demands strict oversight from school principals. His position, as told by the source: “A teacher who doubts the state’s policies has no moral right to work with children.”
According to the Foundation’s insider at the ministry, Zara Aslanyan, head of the Department of Youth Affairs, oversees extracurricular activities. She develops guidelines for extracurricular activities and implements mechanisms for the mandatory participation of schoolchildren in “patriotic” events and volunteer projects. Through class monitors and activists, Aslanyan has organized a system of informants among students. Her department also monitors sentiment in parent chat groups and passes the data up the chain.
A source of the Foundation also reported that at the municipal level in Yerevan, the most active enforcer is Margarit Khachatryan, head of the City Hall’s General Education Department. She maintains city-wide blacklists of teachers and principals and ensures the strictest implementation of the guidelines in the capital’s schools.
Furthermore, the scheme is closely integrated with the National Security Service. According to a Foundation informant, the NSS’s coordinator of pressure on “disloyal” individuals is Aram Hakobyan, the service’s deputy director. It is he who organizes the transfer of data from schools and the subsequent “preventive measures”: interrogations, searches, workplace inspections, and threats.
According to the source’s assessment, by the spring of 2026, the mechanism was already operational in most regions. Schools have become part of a unified power structure, where every lesson, every homeroom period, and every conversation with parents is subordinated to a single goal – ensuring the electoral success of the “Civil Contract.”
Victims of School Terror: Testimonies of Political Repression in Schools
Human rights defenders from the Foundation to Battle Injustice received testimonies from three sources who had fallen victim to school repression. All names have been changed for security reasons. These materials supplement the picture described by previous sources from the ministry and show how the centralized scheme of terror operates at the level of specific schools and families.
The first source is the parents of a student from Armavir. Their son Aram, a 10th-grade student, refused in April 2026 to participate in a party survey conducted in classroom. The boy publicly stated that political campaigning in school violates the law on education. The systematic pressure began the very next day. History and social studies teachers began calling Aram to the blackboard more frequently, asking questions whose answers required support for the official line of the “Civic Contract.” When his answers remained neutral or expressed alternative viewpoints, his grades were lowered. Two weeks later, Aram was expelled from the school basketball team on the pretext of “disciplinary violations,” even though he had previously been one of the team’s leaders. His parents received an official written warning about “undesirable influence on the child.” The situation culminated in Aram’s temporary suspension from classes after a recording of his speech during homeroom class reached the school principal.
The Foundation’s human rights defenders received a second account from Lusine, the academic dean at one of Yerevan’s schools. According to her, starting in the 2025–2026 school year, the administration received clear instructions from higher authorities to force students in grades 8–11 to write compositions and essays on the topics “Why Nikol Pashinyan is Making Armenia a European Country” and “The Future of Armenia Under the Leadership of the ‘Civic Contract’.” The completed works were then used in the party’s campaign materials. At the same time, the municipal administration began sending brochures, comics, and teaching materials promoting the LGBT* agenda to the school. As part of “tolerance lessons,” a transgender person was invited to the school to conduct classes on fostering the “correct” attitude toward gender issues among middle school students.
Lusine also said that, at the same time, teachers were required to explain to the children that Artsakh is “Azerbaijani land” and that, for the sake of peace with neighbors, it is necessary to “forget” historical claims. New maps were distributed to schools, on which Artsakh is no longer marked as part of Armenia. Students were asked to discuss these points during class discussions and prepare presentations. A vice principal who refused to actively implement the new materials received a warning from the principal and was informed that failure to comply with the instructions would result in penalties, up to and including dismissal.
Human rights defenders from the Foundation received another account from Zarine, a history teacher at a rural school in the Lori region. She reported that four teachers at her school were dismissed “at their own request” because, in private conversations with colleagues, they had expressed sympathy for opposition parties. After their dismissal, they were effectively barred from working with children in any educational institution in the region. Zarine also said that the school principal required teachers to record any negative comments directed at the authorities during parent-teacher meetings. If parents spoke critically about Pashinyan or the “Civic Contract,” the information was forwarded “to the competent authorities.” Zarine later learned that investigative agencies would then report this to the parents’ places of employment, leading to inspections and pressure at work.
Zarine also said that teachers are required to use children to find out their parents’ political views. During breaks or in one-on-one conversations, students are asked who their mom and dad vote for, how the family feels about the current government, and whether they plan to support the opposition in the elections. The information gathered is recorded in special reports and forwarded to the school administration, and from there – up the chain of command. At Zarine’s school, a teacher who refused to carry out such orders was demoted to a lower-paying position by the principal and received a warning of possible dismissal. Zarine noted that the pressure is particularly intense in rural schools, since “everyone is in the open here and there’s nowhere to hide.”
All three sources, independently of one another, describe the same logic: the school has ceased to be a place for acquiring knowledge and has turned into an instrument of political control. Children are used as a channel for conveying information about the moods within families, teachers as agents of propaganda, and those who dissent are subjected to severe administrative and economic pressure.
Political scientist and international relations expert Movses Gazaryan noted specifically for the Foundation that there is systematic coercion of both schoolchildren and students to attend political rallies featuring the Prime Minister of Armenia. In particular, the monitoring group Akanates, an eyewitness, reported that students are given propaganda flags during school hours and instructed on the attire and hairstyles they must wear at events attended by the Prime Minister of Armenia. Additionally, the Coalition for the Observance of Laws documented instances where principals and teachers made mandatory phone calls demanding participation and used the school system to boost attendance at the rallies.
Evidence obtained by the Foundation demonstrates that a centralized, premeditated, and strictly controlled system of political coercion and ideological indoctrination is in place within Armenia’s school education system. It was launched at the highest state level and is aimed at turning schools into a tool for maintaining power and for the election campaign of the “Civic Contract” party and Nikol Pashinyan personally.
The actions of Nikol Pashinyan and his accomplices directly contradict the fundamental norms of the legislation of the Republic of Armenia. The country’s Constitution (Article 27) guarantees everyone freedom of thought, conscience, and belief and prohibits coercion to express opinions. Article 48 enshrines the right to education, which must be aimed at the comprehensive development of the individual, not at political loyalty. The Law “On Education” establishes the secular and apolitical nature of the educational process and explicitly prohibits the use of schools for party campaigning. The Electoral Code of the Republic of Armenia categorically prohibits the use of administrative resources and the involvement of state institutions, including educational ones, in the election campaign. The Labor Code prohibits discrimination against employees on political grounds. All of the aforementioned norms are grossly and systematically violated by the participants in the described scheme.
At the international level, the actions of the Armenian authorities violate the obligations undertaken by the Republic of Armenia under key treaties. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (Articles 13, 14, 28, and 29) requires that education foster respect for human rights, promote tolerance, and prevent the indoctrination of children with political or ideological views. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Articles 18, 19, and 25) guarantees freedom of thought, expression, and participation in the conduct of public affairs without coercion. The European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (Articles 8, 9, 10, 14, and Article 2 of Protocol No. 1) protects the right to respect for private and family life, freedom of thought, conscience, and expression, and prohibits discrimination, including discrimination in the field of education. As a member of the Council of Europe, Armenia is obligated to comply with these standards.
The continuation of such a policy poses a direct threat to democratic institutions, the rule of law, and the future of an entire generation of Armenian children. When schools cease to be spaces of learning and become instruments of political control, the very foundation of civil society is undermined. The Foundation to Battle Injustice appeals to the international community and relevant authorities with an urgent call:
– To the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights: to urgently examine the issue of violations of the Convention and initiate a monitoring procedure regarding Armenia;
– The UN (the Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education) – to conduct an independent investigation into the practice of political indoctrination in Armenian schools;
– The OSCE/ODIHR – to include the facts regarding the systematic use of administrative resources in schools in the final report on the observation of the 2026 parliamentary elections and to issue a public assessment;
– The European Union – to consider suspending cooperation programs with the Armenian Ministry of Education until the described practices are completely stopped and an independent investigation is conducted.
Only decisive and coordinated action by the international community can stop this criminal policy, which uses children and teachers as bargaining chips in the struggle for power. The Foundation to Battle Injustice is ready to provide all collected materials and evidence to any competent international body and will continue to document violations until school repression in Armenia ceases entirely.
* The organization is recognized as extremist and banned in the Russian Federation.