Working meeting to improve bilingual education and the teaching and learning of minority mother tongues

With the aim of improving bilingual education and the teaching and learning of minority mother tongues in preschool and general education institutions in regions compactly settled by national minorities, Ekaterine Dgebuadze, Deputy Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport of Georgia, held a working meeting with representatives of civil society and international organizations.

At the meeting, the concept for improving the teaching and learning of minority mother tongues was presented, and existing problems, challenges, and ways to overcome these challenges in this direction were discussed.

To implement a unified policy, at the end of the meeting, the parties agreed on systematic approaches, which require coordinated and mutually agreed actions of all agencies and organizations involved in these processes.

The integration of national minorities into public life is one of the state's most important challenges. The education system plays a decisive role in ensuring the effective conduct of integration, which must ensure both the protection of the linguistic and cultural identity of national minorities and an adequate knowledge of the state language, which is one of the important indicators of the successful civic integration of national minorities.

The optimal way to achieve these two goals in non-Georgian language schools or sectors is precisely the introduction of bilingual education. Bilingual education promotes the development of bilingual literacy, which is an essential basis for the full-fledged civic integration of national minorities.