The Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport of Georgia completed the process of approving the VII grade school textbooks of several subjects and basic level of secondary education.

The seventh class textbook approval process took place on the basis of the 2018 order of the Minister.

Within the framework of the current large-scale reform, the new National Curriculum will focus on critical thinking, research, creative and cooperative skills development (and not just the content), as well as strengthening of interpersonal relationships, organizing knowledge and interconnection. In order to achieve these goals and to satisfy these criteria, the textbook approval competition was announced for the VII grade (for some of the subjects of the primary cycle where textbooks were not selected last year).

This time, the publishers had more time to write textbooks - more than 4 months for the VII grade textbook; Furthermore, more time was spent on the preparation: subject-specific consultations were conducted for authors of textbooks that are related to the standard of the subject itself, as well as understanding of criteria of evaluation; The thematic seminars / workshops were also held, including governmental and non-governmental organizations.

The textbooks were evaluated in various manners: compliance with national curriculum; Content management; Structural adjustment; Language confidentiality; Compliance with legal and ethical norms; Compliance with the principles of sustainable development.

The manuals were evaluated by independent experts; the assessment team included both practicing teachers as well as the academic circle representatives, psychologists, philologists and specialists in human rights.

On the basis of high confidence and trustworthy reputation expressed by the Public Defender's Institute, the Ministry appealed to the Public Defender's Office to engage in the process of drawing specialists who evaluated the textbooks in different directions:

1. How much gender balance is preserved in texts and illustrations?

2. How books are free from stereotypical attitudes, discriminatory elements of ethnic, religious and other grounds;

3. What are the principles of sustainable development and others?

75 applications for 14 subjects were made in the process of textbook approval.

The first stage has crossed 73 applications. The error was found in two applications that have not been rectified within the established deadline and therefore could not be transferred to the next stage.

In addition, due to non-compliance with the content and / or technical shortcomings, another six applications have been dropped. New manuals will be published before the beginning of the academic year and will be distributed to all public schools. To that end, the Ministry has already begun an analysis of the completed approval process to improve the efficiency.

Furthermore, it should be noted that in the course of the 2018-2019 textbooks were by the minimum margin, but due to technical and other shortcomings, they were not accepted. It is important that this intellectual resource is not lost to the educational system and is accessible to teachers, which will contribute to the diversity and improvement of the learning and teaching process. For this purpose, the Ministry will begin consultations with publishers and copyright groups in the coming weeks.