In 2019, the Savings Game of Sparkassenstiftung has been approved by the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports as official teaching and learning material for secondary schools in Armenia. The aim for Sparkassenstiftung Armenia and the CBA was to teach up to 1,200 teachers all over the country about how to use the Savings Game as an educational tool for their pupils.

As a consequence, more than 7,000 copies of the Savings Game were produced and provided to all schools in Armenia. While our partner the Ministry integrated the materials into the teachers’ curricula, Sparkassenstiftung Armenia trained the CBA trainers in the Savings Game in order to be able to act as multipliers.

Digital strategy

Due to the severe restrictions caused by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic Sparkassenstiftung was not able to continue classroom trainings in the beginning of this year. Sparkassenstiftung Armenia reacted quickly and adapted to the new situation and developed a virtual Savings Game training as an alternative way to continue the successful cooperation and the teacher trainings.

After the translation of materials into the Armenian language, Sparkassenstiftung Armenia and the CBA were the first to successfully implement the virtual Savings Game training fully online in August this year. Altogether, 266 teachers from all eleven regions of Armenia participated in the training.

Considering the pilot character of virtual trainings, Sparkassenstiftung was positively surprised by the high motivation and engagement of both the trainers and the teachers during the online training. The virtual Savings Game has proven to be a valuable tool to further ensure the capacity building process within the schools.

Jennifer Berbuir / Eric Böttcher