The Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia has finished working on the new rule of textbooks approval for the general educational institutions. The Minister of Education and Science of Georgia Dimitri Shashkini held a briefing on new rule of textbooks approval.

The aim of textbook approval is to bring school textbooks in compliance with the goals and objectives of the National Curriculum and to find out if the textbooks meet the National Curriculum requirements methodologically and technically.

The National Curriculum for the years 2011-2016 has been developed.  During 2011-2012 academic years - the first stage of the new National Curriculum will be introduced at the primary education level (I-VI grades).  The contest for the textbooks for I-VI grades is opened. Legal and physical persons can take part in the contest.

The textbooks will be evaluated according to the criteria and technical parameters defined within the textbook approval regulation. There are 40 content and 10 technical criteria.

The textbooks of each grade will be approved for 6 years. Except of the cases when the curriculum of the grade/level and subject/subjects changes and becomes the reason of cancelation of approval.

By announcement of Dimitri Shashkini: “It is important that new textbooks will be improved methodologically and technically. The textbooks will be cheaper and will not change for 5 years. It is also very significant that the government provides the schoolchildren from socially vulnerable families with the textbooks free of charge.

The criteria of the textbook approval have been identified:

• The textbooks should be in compliance with the requirements of the National Curriculum;
• The textbook should be written in compliance with the modern literally language norms;
• The textbook should be written in a simply language and meet the peculiarities of the different age categories;

The technical parameters of textbook approval have also been identified:

• The size of textbooks, quality of paper, and size of script were defined.
• The focus will be made on the quality of illustration

The aim of new regulations of textbook approval is to improve the gaps in the field of textbook approval and provide the schoolchildren with high quality textbooks.