On October 23 the government of Armenia approved the program of Dilijan International School (DIS). One of the founding partners and chair of the Board of Trustees of DIS, Veronika Zonabend spoke to the newspaper Sobesednik Armenii about the project.
In the near future Dilijan International School will become a full member of United World Colleges, the renowned global education association. Upon receipt of membership the school will receive the name UWC Dilijan, joining the 12 other UWC schools operating in Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the United States, Canada, China, India, Singapore, Costa Rica and Swaziland.
In an interview with the newspaper Sobesednik Armenii,Veronika Zonabend noted that “for the first time on the territory of the entire post-Soviet space a school is being created that is capable of competing with the best schools in the world… Our school will be attended by talented and socially engaged young people from around the world, and they will be taught by the best teachers from various countries.”
HIGH QUALITY AND ON TIME
In September 2014 Dilijan International School will welcome its first pupils. Veronika Zonabend emphasized in the interview: “Construction of the school is proceeding according to schedule, and there is no doubt that at the beginning of the next academic year we will open our doors to welcome the first pupils. The construction work is being carried out by RD Group, which is headed by Gagik Adibekyan – one of the founding partners of Dilijan International School, and this provides a guarantee that the construction will be high quality and on time. RD Group is managing the implementation of such a large-scale project with honor, using construction technologies and materials which earlier had never been used in Armenia.”
In addition to the learning and housing corpuses, the territory of the school’s campus will include an indoor pool, sports facilities (including a football field), a theater and performing arts center, research complex and medical center.
ECO-SCHOOL
The author of the design of the DIS campus is British architect Tim Flynn, who prior to beginning work on the project studied school construction projects for more than 40 schools in various countries over the past 20 years, leaving no doubt that the design of the school in Dilijan incorporates that best in international practice.
“We are building not only the most modern but also the most environmentally friendly public building in Armenia,” Ms. Zonabend told the newspaper. “The school is partially located within the Dilijan National Park, so the architect faced the task of smoothly blending the school’s corpuses into the surrounding landscape. Green roof technology will be used, which entails the use of the roof as a growing bed for the natural fauna which covers the territory’s surrounding landscape. The buildings will be environmentally safe and energy efficient, simple in their maintenance and to largely degree using energy from renewable resources.”