Georgia Purges Education System
The BBC web site has an interesting article on attempts to clean up Georgia’s thoroughly rotten educational system. Unfortunately, almost everything is available for “sale” in former soviet republics like Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.
As thousands of Georgian high school students prepare for their university admission exams, many here remember an old Soviet joke about a man who visits a college professor.
“My son has an exam with you tomorrow, but he is not well prepared,” he says, “I am afraid that he will fail.”
Without raising his head the professor replies: “I bet you $500 your son will pass.”
Ironically, however, not everyone is happy with attempts to bring the Georgian educational system in line with international standards.
Over the past year, the school curriculum has been modernised and dozens of head teachers have been replaced. Many professors and dozens of private universities have been disqualified from teaching.
But it has been a painful and controversial process that has made more headlines and caused more street protests than any other reform. A few months ago, thousands signed a petition asking the president to sack the education minister.
In recent months I’ve been talking to many people here in Armenia about this aspect of the “Rose Revolution.” That is, corruption has become so entrenched in the three South Caucasus countries that it’s very difficult and painful to remove.
Moreover, while everybody decries high level government corruption, the same people themselves engage in the same process although the monetary benefits may be smaller. Even NGOs are adept at submitting false receipts to donors to hide the fact that money provided for projects has been “diverted” elsewhere.
It’s a “system,” but one that needs to broken if any of these countries are to progress.
The full news item can be read online here.
Georgian Education
Via Oneworld, BBC News has an article on Georgia’s education system and the efforts to improve it rapidly, especially via standardized testing.
See more Blgorel education in Georgia coverage here….
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