PM presents General Education Reform for “healthy values”, “national identity”

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili on Tuesday presented the Government’s General Education Reform for the country, with plans for updating national education goals to strengthen “national identity” and promote formation of “healthy values” among students.

Garibashvili called the plan an ”important initiative” and noted the national goals of education had not been updated over the past 20 years, necessitating the move.

[T]he Minister [of Education] has very good visions of how to make schools in general more autonomous, how to decentralise and delegate certain rights [...] Our main goal is that all the things we do now are not temporary [and] bring results. This process of transformation will continue very intensively", the PM said.

He also alleged the “so-called reforms” under the former Government in 2004 had “destroyed the entire educational system” and presented a new vision that “served to conduct some experiments on our youth”, claiming it had aimed to “change our national identity, our DNA".

They wanted to invent a new Georgian, a new person [...] Of course, it was absolutely unreasonable, and I would say an illusion, a utopia that ended very soon. Since we came to power, a lot of innovations have been initiated by a number of ministers, a lot of reforms have been implemented, but there are still challenges”, Garibashvili said.

Priority areas for improving the education system in the country include ensuring “quality education” and “raising the prestige of the teacher profession”, the Government head pointed out.

At the initiative of the Minister, intensive work is underway to improve the professional development scheme for teachers, which is based on a completely new vision, and the Minister himself will present it to you very soon”, he said.

Garibashvili also claimed unspecified “recent disinformation campaigns” against the Minister and his office, saying the attempts showed “the Minister and his team are working well”.

He also said the 2024 budget for the Ministry of Education and Science would reach ₾2.508 billion ($0.94bln) and announced a ₾500 ($187.29) average rise in teacher salaries.