Announcement regarding the provision of student transportation

The Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia responds to the misinformation disseminated by Member of Parliament Mr. Levan Bezhashvili regarding the student transportation program, in which he spoke of an unjustified increase in project costs.

The Ministry believes that such statements should be based on actual data and supported by relevant arguments. However, to date, Mr. Levan Bezhashvili has not requested any information regarding the program from the Ministry that would allow him to draw such conclusions. Accordingly, the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia expresses its readiness to provide materials related to the aforementioned information to any interested party.

In order to prevent the public from being misled, the Ministry clarifies the following:

In accordance with Order #1171 of the Minister of Education and Science of Georgia dated November 26, 2012, “On the Promotion of General Education Programs,” the sub-program for school accessibility was launched. Its main objective was to increase students' access to general education, while students with difficult geographical locations and low social status would receive state assistance, which would contribute to their obtaining a quality general education.

To ensure this, the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia conducted a market survey to determine by how many companies, at what price, and under what conditions student transportation could be provided. The pricing presented by suppliers was studied in detail, and its adequacy was established. The cost of transportation was calculated taking into account the number of students, the required vehicle type, the distance to be traveled, fuel type, fuel price, driver's remuneration, student health insurance provision, and other components.

Upon completion of the market research procedures, the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia announced an electronic tender.

The implementation of the program began in a pilot mode in January 2013 and, until March 2013, served more than 9,400 students from 190 schools. As a result of refined requests received from schools, a repeated market survey conducted according to those requirements, and a tender, 145 schools and nearly 6,000 students were added to the initial 190 schools and 9,400 students starting from March 2013.

A total of 2,091,536 GEL was spent on student transportation until the end of the second semester of the 2012-2013 academic year.

At the end of the second semester of the 2012-2013 academic year, the results of the program were evaluated, and a decision was made to launch the program at full scale starting from September 2013. As a result of the announced tender, 3 companies were identified as winners, and 5,480,972.2 GEL was spent to transport more than 47,000 students from over 900 schools until the end of the first semester of the 2013-2014 academic year (the number of school days in the first semester of the 2013-2014 academic year was 70).

From January 2014 (the second semester) until the announcement of a new tender, the number of beneficiaries, transportation distance, and other components were verified once again. As a result of the announced tender, 3 companies were identified as winners, and new contracts were signed with a total value of 7,717,273 GEL (the price increase is due to the fact that in the second semester of the 2013-2014 academic year, the number of school days is 101, which exceeds the figure of the first semester by 31 days). This service is utilized by more than 47,200 students from over 900 public schools in Georgia.

It is noteworthy that since the launch of this program, student attendance rates during school classes have increased dramatically.

An analysis of information received from schools shows that the student attendance rate prior to the launch of the sub-program was 60%; following the launch of the sub-program, it increased by 35%, and attendance today stands at 95%.

Resource centers note that instances of tardiness have almost entirely ceased to occur since the implementation of the program.