Mikheil Batiashvili: "It is with your participation and through new programs that the problems persisting for decades in small rural schools will be resolved"

Mikheil Batiashvili, Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport of Georgia, spoke with newly joined teachers in the system about the challenges that have existed for decades in small-enrollment and rural schools.

According to the Minister, half of the schools in Georgia are schools with 1 to 100 students (more than 900 schools), which have historically faced a shortage of qualified teachers.

Within the framework of the Teacher House program “Teach for Georgia”, 150 dispatched teachers failed to fill the shortage over the past 10 years, and this number met only 40% of the requested teachers annually. For decades, university teacher preparation programs have not faced competition, and even in so-called free programs, the number of candidates does not exceed approximately 530 people annually. Despite this year's trend of increasing the prestige of the teaching profession, universities, due to the duration of academic programs, will not be able to train the necessary personnel over the next 5-10 years.

“It is with your participation that the problems existing for decades in small-enrollment rural schools will be resolved. Therefore, the Ministry has decided to strengthen targeted programs such as the Aspiring Teacher Program — currently, there are up to 2,000 aspiring teachers in the system. Individuals who hold at least a bachelor's degree in any discipline/subject, upon passing a school competition, join a 2-year preparation program, undergo a distance learning course, and pass a qualifying exam. During the aspiring period, teachers receive compensation equivalent to that of a practicing teacher. The National School of Teachers — which allows both current and aspiring teachers to undergo a 3-month intensive program and teach more than one related subject, for example, History-Geography-Civil Education, or Chemistry-Biology, etc. 4,000 individuals registered for the program. Interviews will be held on October 24-25, and training will take place in November. The program ‘Teach for Georgia’ will continue to dispatch teachers to particularly remote and mountain schools,” stated the Minister.

At the meeting with teachers, it was also announced that changes are being made to the university teacher preparation program, and the so-called 60-credit program will be offered to interested individuals during bachelor's studies either independently or in an integrated manner. In the near future, teacher preparation programs for subject groups of the basic education stage will also be developed.