Statement of the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia

Regarding the facilitated acquisition of the public school textbooks, the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia clarifies, that due to a high participation effort from the society, the approval process is held transparently in a public mode. As a result, starting from the new academic year, the students of I-VI grade will start their learning process with improved textbooks.

The Ministry of Education and Science have implemented the approval process since 2017. It includes 180 inspectors, who evaluate the incoming textbook packages according to 60 established criteria.

From the very first day of the textbook approval process, the Ministry has repeatedly stated that the selection of books will be based on competition, principle of price and quality, where the defining role is quality and not the price.

Given the fact, that the current procurement legislation in Georgia does not oversee the multicomponent, multistage procurement procedure, where more than one winner can be announced, the Ministry thoroughly studied the best international practice. Additionally, the procurement procedure will now be based on the sample tender recommended by the World Bank - Request for Bids Textbooks and Reading Materials (2017 edition).

Consequently, on 4 May, 2018 the Ministry addressed the National Procurement agency, to finalize the acquisition, according to the Article 10 of the Georgian legislation.

The tender model was introduced in 2017 for all the interested parties, parallel to endorsing the textbook approval procedure.