A meeting was held with semi-finalists, who passed second stage of grant contest of Vocational Education Project initiated by the Millennium Challenge Account – Georgia.The Executive Manager of Millennium Challenge Account – Georgia Magda Magradze opened the event.  The first Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Georgia Ketevan Natriashvili and the Executive Manager of Millennium Challenge Corporation – Georgia Catherine Klement addressed the guests.

The goal of the grant contest of vocational education’s promotion is to develop new educational programs relevant to requirements of market labor or to finance proposals of updating present programs in sectors of science, engineering, technologies, agriculture and tourism.

A full budget of the grant contest is 12 million US dollars. Each grant cost can be from 300,000 US dollars up to 3 million US dollars.

During the first stage of grant contest, 70 applications have been received. In October 2015, the commission of independent evaluation and international experts discussed and evaluated the received application. The Commission has identified 29 semi-finalist applicants.

Basically, the applications were presented by representatives of the education sector (53%), private sector (23%) and non-governmental organizations / associations (26%). Most of the applications, 26% and 23% are the agriculture and tourism sectors, followed by engineering (20%), information technology (13%), technology (11%) and natural sciences (7%) sectors.