Mikheil Saakashvili met the teachers
26.08.2010
The President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili attended the presentation of Hours of Contact Hours for Class Tutors at hotel-complex “Bazaleti” and met 150 teachers there. By the announcement of the President the program of Contact Hours for Class Tutors is very important and thanked the experts of National Curriculum and Assessment Center who worked on the project. The program is the Class Tutors from 1st to 4th grade. 

During the meeting the president talked about the education system of Georgia and the reforms that are underway. Mikheil Saakashvili thinks that the education is the most important sphere and all are interested in the situation at public schools, professional and higher education institutions.

The president spoke about the results of the Unified National Exams. By the announcement of the President “It’s sad that nowadays majority of entrant choose the humanitarian field of education, when whole world is for technological development.” According to the President’s decision, from the next year first 20% of the State Grants will be for the entrants of humanitarian field and the rest 80% will be for the entrants of natural science specialties.

The President said that one of the priorities of education is teaching English and information technologies. For this purpose all public schools will have computer labs which will help students to develop their information technologies skills.

500 English teachers are already in Georgia, 500 will come till the end of the year. According to Mikheil Saakashvili, these innovations are designed to make English the second language after Georgian for the future generations.

The president also talked about teacher’s certification process. He thanked the teachers who took certification exams. According to the President’s announcement certified teachers will get salaries with 75 GEL in addition. Certified teachers can also work as mentor teachers and their salaries will equal 250-260 GEL in total.

Mikheil Saakashvili talked about innovations of 2010-2011 academic year: the beginning and ending dates of academic year has been defined, two semester classes has been developed, the curriculum has been revised, new subjects World Culture and Civil Defense will be added to the curriculum, the English language will be taught from the 1st grade, physical culture classes will be replaced by sport classes.

The president highlighted the importance of sport competitions between schools. For this purpose the process of improving school’s sport infrastructure is underway. From the spring of next year, the piloting of dance classes at school will begin. Georgian and other national dances will be taught first at some schools of Tbilisi.

From the next academic year, the special attention will be paid to the subjects of natural science. Virtual labs will help students to learn physic, biology and chemistry better

The President talked about text-books and highlighted that from now on the text-books won’t change for next 5 years.

Mikheil Saakashvili spoke about the professional education as well. By announcement of the President, it is very important to develop the professional education institutions for students to get educated in the fields that are most demanded.

As the President said, information technology center will be built in the suburbs. Technological University will be created to prepare qualified workers.

The President of Georgia thanked the teachers and underlined their role in building the future of the country.