The meeting of the Government of Georgia was held on February 9, 2010 . The Agenda covered 36 items
Prior to the Meeting Mr. Nika Gilauri, the Prime Minister of Georgia focused his attention on the educational system reforms. He noted that the President of Georgia had already voiced the principal directions and expected innovations in the educational system.
Hereinbelow we provide the opening speech of the Prime Minister made at the Government Meeting:
"Health and educational fields are one of the main priorities for this year. The Minister has presented beneficial innovations; we have gone over the terms together within which to implement such reforms."
Nika Gilauri asked Dimitri Shashkin, the Education and Science Minister to provide the information on principal directions of the educational reform.
"The main reform of the educational system is that a child shall go to school and be given general education. The main priority is that at school a teacher shall be given an opportunity to teach children and a pupil shall be given an opportunity to study. This is the purpose of the reform prescribed for 2010-2011. In order to get a school leaving certificate in June, 2011, pupils shall take minimal competence. We understand that at the moment we fail to have an adequate general educational system complying with our country. Therefore, the competence will be low. We prefer to start with the minimal competence and then increase the same in the future," - Dimitri Shashkin declared.
The Prime Minister highlighted that the aforesaid shall be the first step and the first year shall be necessarily simplified at most in order the 11th grade students to pass 10 exams successfully.
According to the Education and Science Minister, it is very important to provide certification of teachers. The first stage of voluntary certification of teachers was provided in June to ensure the raise of their professional skills. The certified teachers will be increased their wages in the future.
With regard to the aforesaid, the Prime Minister of Georgia declared that the Government is distributing 160 GEL vouchers among teachers in order to get prepared for certification exams. Costs of the teachers' retraining program shall be covered by the State.
Dimitri Shashkin also declared that the principle of licensing the institutions of higher education, which served as bureaucratic leverage and prevented the system development in point of the fact that everything was brought to registration of square meters and amount of computers, will be cancelled. 200 educational institutions having no license will be given a chance of authorization for the purpose of protection of the students' rights. Diplomas of authorized institutions of higher education will be recognized.
The Prime Minister Nika Gilauri asked the Education and Science Minister to focus his attention on innovations related to textbooks.
According to Dimitri Shashkin, the textbook prices will not increase; on the contrary, the price reduction is expected. From the next year the State will buy textbooks for every child from a socially unprotected family. Certain sums have already been envisaged to be entered into the next year budget. This is a very fair principle of distribution of available resources. Furthermore, studies will by conducted by the textbooks selected by schools for 5 years.
Finally, the Prime Minister of Georgia stated that some changes have been planned as per the vocational schools and the information on such innovations will be publicly known in the near future.
Press Service of the Prime Minister