According to the Law of Georgia on General Education and the data from 2009, 234 non-Georgian schools (404 non-Georgian schools and sectors in total) were functioning:
Language of Schools with mixed Schools where language Instruction language sectors of instruction is only one one of the minority languages Number Number Number Number
of Schools of Students of Schools of Students
Azerbaijani 124 27442 94 18462 Armenian 140 15592 124 14944 Russian 135 24512 14 3748 Ossetian 3 165 1 60 Other 2 242 1 37 Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia (MoES)13
Notably, the above-mentioned figures were substantially changed in 2011. According to the data from 2011, there are 216 non-Georgian schools and 305 non-Georgian sec-tors.
13 Tabatadze, Sh. Caucasus Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development (CIPDD), “Cultural Dialogue
and Civic Consciousness,” p. 85 .
Language of Schools with mixed Schools where language Instruction language sectors of instruction is only one one of the minority languages
Number Number
of Schools of Schools
Azerbaijani 123 88 Armenian 133 116 Russian 61 12 Note: there are
some schools where language of instruction are three languages.
Therefore, the figure in the table exceeds 305.
The difference from 2009 to 2011 is explicit. It should be underlined that the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia implements schools’ optimization process and the cut of the number of non-Georgian schools relates to this factor. During the optimization process, Georgian schools shut down as well. Problems regarding the Russian schools are even more overt. Out of 135 Russian schools and sectors in 2009, only 61 Russian schools and sectors are functioning in 2011. Kvemo Kartli and Samtskhe-Javakheti resi-dents explicitly talked about the problem of closing Russian schools and sectors. They emphasized that the closure of Russian schools hindered access to general education for minority children. For those children who were instructed in Russian language, it is a great challenge and struggle to pursue their studies in a different language. There is another problem related to the same issue. It is possible to move a child to other Russian school, however in this case parents face transportation problems because of a remote distance from the place of residence.14
Access to education in native language of minorities are administered either by establish-ment of private schools or/and through teaching in minority languages in public schools of Georgia. General educational institution can be established either as a legal entity of public law, or as a commercial or non-commercial entity of private law (Law of Georgia on Legal Entity of Public Law, Article 31.1).
This opportunity is realized in practice. There are 16 private schools in Georgia where minority language is the only or one of the languages of instruction15. It should be pointed out that the majority of such schools are located in big cities (Tbilisi – 11 schools, Batumi
14 Report of the monitoring group in Samtskhe-Javakheti and Kvemo Kartli regions.
15 Source: Letter of the MoES to the UNAG about statistical information on private non-Georgian schools, May 20, 2010 .
2010
28
– 2, Rustavi – 2). In the regions densely populated by minorities there is only one non-Georgian private school which is located in Algeti village of Marneuli municipality.
Teaching native languages to national minorities remains one of the major problems, as maintained by teachers and parents in Kvemo Kartli and Samtskhe-Javakheti regions. In 2006-2007, Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia in partnership with OSCE/
HCNM developed the draft of the curriculum of Azerbaijani and Armenian as native lan-guages. Experts from Armenia and Azerbaijan took part in working out the curriculum. Ac-cording to the above-mentioned curriculum, trainings for native language teachers were undertaken.16 From 2008, the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia did not con-tinue its work towards this direction. The curriculum was not approved and, subsequently, all efforts for introducing this curriculum and developing corresponding textbooks have been terminated. Therefore, quality of teaching Armenian and Azerbaijani as native lan-guages for minority children is still problematic.
Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia did not resume work towards this direc-tion in 2010. Consequently, minority languages are not part of the nadirec-tional curriculum since there is no teaching and learning programme of these subject areas. Azerbaijani and Armenian languages as subjects are not presented in the Law of Georgia on General Education. The only document where these subject areas are mentioned is “Hour Net” of the national curriculum.17
Akin to the above-mentioned problems regarding the curriculum there are no textbooks of Armenian and Azerbaijani languages that are in line with the needs and context of the education system in Georgia. Therefore, teaching of native languages is conducted ac-cording to the curriculum and textbooks from Armenia and Azerbaijan. Ministry of Educa-tion and Science of Georgia is not aware of the details of the afore-menEduca-tioned curriculum, including content, structure and the programme, since there is no Georgian translation of the afore-mentioned curriculum .
This problem is particularly acute in 12th grades of Armenian and Azerbaijani schools.
According to the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia, teachers instruct in 12th grades with textbooks published in Azerbaijan and Armenia. However, it is noteworthy that in Azerbaijan, general education covers only 11 years; therefore, textbooks of native language for 12th graders are not available at all18. In Armenia, transfer to 12 years of general educations was introduced in 200919. Therefore, in 2010, textbooks for native language acquisition for 12th graders were not available for Armenian schools as well.
In addition to non-existence of the curriculum for teaching native languages to national minorities, there is no professional standard for minority language teachers. This fact ham-pers introduction of multilingual education and threatens the quality of teaching of native
16 Ibid.
17 Source: the official letter of the Legal Department of the MoES to the Deputy Public Defender of Georgia
№ 08-2-13/1907 (14.02.2012)
18 http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002112/211298e.pdf
19 http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002112/211297e.pdf
languages in non-Georgian schools. Since the language transfer is not implemented ef-fectively, poor quality of native language teaching has an impact in terms of acquiring other disciplines, including learning of Georgian as a second language. Considering all the above-mentioned challenges, it is decisive to establish specific mechanisms in order to improve teaching of native languages as independent subject areas at non-Georgian schools. This will substantially promote quality of education in non-Georgian schools of the country.
In 2010, in the framework of the Sub-Programme for the Protection of Minority Languag-es of the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia, funding was provided for the Ossetian Sunday school (based on public school №11). In the Ossetian Sunday school, students had a possibility to learn the Ossetian language, culture, history, folklore, Cauca-sian dances and song.