Salary of inclusive education teachers will be between 400-500 GEL

Mikheil Batiashvili – the Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport of Georgia presented the issue of granting a status of a teachers, to the individuals who work with studets with special education needs to the members of Georgian government.

Mikheil Batiashvili believes that people with different capacities need to have an equitable access to the educational environment in order to get quality inclusive education, which is a very important role assigned to a special teacher.

It should be noted that it is in teacher’s competence, to take into consideration the needs of a student, in conjunction with having an individual approach, as well as developing special recommendation to the school administration, and the parents, creating an individual curriculum, and retrieving alternative learning resources.

On July 20, 2018, before the amendment to the Law on General Education, the special teacher had the status of the school administration representative. Consequently, the social benefits provided by the law did not apply to these professionals, and there was no possibility to increase the remuneration, thus resulting in their dematification.

After the changes, calculation of a special teacher's salaries is in accordance to a different criteria (education and qualification, work experience, work load, etc.), thus their average salary results in a flat number between 400 and 500 GEL.

According to the Government Decree, funding of schools will also be changed for promoting the teaching of a student with special educational needs. In particular, if the school was funded by GEL 350 each month, the funding will now become 500 GEL.