Minority Education in Georgia: Is It Delivering What Is Expected?

ABSTRACT

This article explores the issue of minority education in the nation of Georgia, and this research aims to identify the reasons for minority educational problems. The results of school exit exams, literacy research studies, and the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment were used to highlight the differences in educational achievements of minority and majority students. Content analysis and empirical analysis of focus group discussions form the methodological basis for this study. The research identifies two important factors that influence the quality of general education in minority schools: (a) national curriculum and school textbooks and (b) teacher certification and professional development. Based on these results, the article provides suggestions for the improvement of teacher qualification, school curriculum, and textbooks for non-Georgian schools in Georgia. The author will argue that without fundamental, long-term, and sophisticated national curriculum and textbooks, as well as professional development reforms for teachers, integration of society will remain a problem in Georgia.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shalva Tabatadze

Shalva Tabatadze has a PhD in education and has served as a chairman of the Centre for Civil Integration and Inter-Ethnic Relations (CCIIR) since 2005. Throughout this period, he provided leadership to more than 45 international projects in the field of education.

Dr. Tabatadze is an Associate Professor at East European University, Tbilisi, Georgia. He has received several important awards for his academic, practical, and research activities in the field of education. He was awarded the Edmund Muskie Program Fellowship by the United States Department of State of in 2006. That year, he also received the Phi Beta Delta International Scholars award for distinguished scholars and students of 2006. For his work in the field of bilingual and minority education, he was inducted into Kent State University’s Hall of Fame and received Kent State’s Diversity Alumni Award in 2011.

His research interests are educational policy and multilingual and intercultural education. He is the author of 4 textbooks, 7 monographs, and more than 30 articles in the field of educational policy and multilingual and intercultural education; and he is the editor of more than 10 textbooks on content and language-integrated teaching.

Dr. Tabatadze serves as an educational expert and consultant for many international organizations and has participated as an educational expert for more than 40 research and education projects since 2005. Dr. Tabatadze has experience working as an international consultant in Moldova, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan.