The importance of education in Georgia

If you ask a Georgian student if they think that education is important, they will tell you: “Yes, without a good education you will not be successful”, as Tamuna, a Georgian volunteer told me. Parents as well know how important good education is and supporting their kids while learning. Consequently Tamunas mum is super proud of her to study in university.

Like Tamunas family a lot of people have not enough money to pay the 2225 Lari per year for university while the average wages are only 1103.52 Lari. Often the only chance for a lot of students is to get a scholarship.

In Georgia free access to education is guaranteed and the government pays for the books. However 31% [1] of youth were in 2015 not in education, employment or training. Mostly these are orphans or kids from poor families and have no one who cares about their education. Nowadays the success in school depends on your own and not on the money of the parents, like in the past. After the reform in 2004 it was not allowed to pay teachers for good marks in school or university.

In 2014 Henry Kerali, the World Bank Director of the South Caucasus explained: “Georgia’s prospects to compete in the global economy will largely depend on its ability to produce a highly-skilled workforce via improved teaching and learning.” Until now Georgia tries to level up the standards of education and spends 2.9% of its GDP in education[2]. Slowly it is becoming successful and so in 2016 190.057 people studied, which is 5.1% of the Georgian population. It is a very high rate in comparison with other countries. For example in Germany 3.41%[3] of the population studied in 2016.

Deductive Georgia has a high skilled workforce which can advance Georgia and its economy to have better living conditions. However the problem is that Georgia has not enough jobs for every graduate. The youth unemployment rate was in 2017 27.1%[4] and 1/3 of them finished university. Due to this 12% of the graduate decides to continue with a Master Degree to increase the chances for a job by 70%[5].

Hence some students have no other chances as to leave the country and work abroad to earn money. Of course this is not good, because the country needs the high educated workforce to improve their economy. For example entrepreneurs who could offer new jobs.

The problem is that in 2016 53% [6]of the jobs were in agriculture which only produces 10% of the GDP. Moreover only 10.000 out of 124.000 students studied in 2014 a technical subject[7]. Thus Georgia has only a few engineers who are needed.

However, Georgia has a skills shortage and companies have huge problems to find well educated employees. After the downfall of UdSSR 1 Million of skilled workers left the country because they were not able to find a good job. For this reason in 2011 the government decided to reform the schools that the students are better educated which shows first success.

By whole and large job situation is becoming better in Georgia. The youth unemployment rate decreased from 2015 with 29% to 27.1% in 2017. Besides a lot of universities have partnerships with companies for internships and later jobs. The future will show how successful all the reforms in education have been.

Sources:

[1] Data from: http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2015/01/12/the-jobs-challenge-in-the-south-caucasus---georgia

[2] Data from: https://eacea.ec.europa.eu/sites/eacea-site/files/countryfiche_georgia_2017.pdf

[3] Data from: https://www.destatis.de/DE/PresseService/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2016/11/PD16_417_213.html

[4] Data from: https://tradingeconomics.com/georgia/youth-unemployment-rate

[5] Data from: https://eacea.ec.europa.eu/sites/eacea-site/files/countryfiche_georgia_2017.pdf

[6] Data from: https://eacea.ec.europa.eu/sites/eacea-site/files/countryfiche_georgia_2017.pdf

[7] Data from: https://eacea.ec.europa.eu/sites/eacea-site/files/countryfiche_georgia_2017.pdf