Statement of the Minister of Education and Science of Georgia Mikheil Chkhenkeli

First of all, I would like to express my sorrow for the tragedy that took the lives of two young people and reveal my condolences to their parents, relatives and the whole society.

The relevant authorities are doing their best to establish the truth in the immediate future.

Safety our children is our primary interest. The main concern of the Ministry today is to intensify working to ensure that such a tragedy does not happen anymore. We have to declare incomparable struggle against violence. Our efforts should cover entire country, all the schools.

This task requires everyday work of every state agency, non-governmental organizations, whole society as well as application of international experience.

Yesterday I met the Minister of Internal Affairs. We are unanimous that it is necessary to strengthen cooperation between the ministries to prevent crime. We agreed to create an inter-agency working group that will coordinate the specific plan and process of prevention. The representatives of state agencies, non-governmental organizations and international organizations working in the field of juvenile justice will be actively involved in the activities of the working group.

We have already set a strategy to work in several directions.

First of all, it is strengthening of the role of the resource officer in educational institutions; as well as coordinated action between the office of resource officers and the law enforcement agencies. It was also decided that at the initial stage, the patrol police will be involved in monitoring of safety of schools.

In addition, the appropriate works will be intensified in schools towards preventive educational and informational activities, public order and school discipline protection, against bullying and violence.

The group will also work on provision of psychological and consultation services for juveniles, conflict prevention-management and mediation programs will be introduced. Hotline of the psychological service will work during 24 hours. We must cover every school of the country, the master’s degree students of psychology specialties of higher education institutions and doctoral students will be involved in the process together with the professionals.

We give special importance to active participation of parents in the process. This implies, on the one hand, the parents’ intensive involvement in school life, as well as provision of information and consulting services for them.

We should focus not only on crime prevention, but above all, on formation of such a situation where violence and aggression will be inadmissible. I believe that no matter how hard it seems, we should move towards this goal. This can only be achieved through spreading of knowledge and education, by establishing the right system of values, a healthy lifestyle.

The Ministry is open for cooperation with the society. Today I will meet psychologists and representatives of organizations working on children’s rights.

With the joint efforts, we will definitely achieve that all schools are safe and such a tragedy will never happen again.