On June 23, 2011 a public debate in Batumi, organized by the Heinrich Boell Foundation, was devoted to the issue of results of the certification examinations in Adjara.
Ghia Abuladze, Minister of Education of Adjara and the main speaker of the discussion, was not able to present the results of examinations carried out in the Adjara region, for the reason that the final results have not yet been calculated. As he said, as soon as the results are ready and analyzed, everything will be published on the Ministry’s website. At the same time, considering the preliminary data, Abuladze does not find that any alarming situation exists in this regard. “Of course I will not be satisfied even by 99 percent index, but these examinations showed us many flaws as well as positive sides,” he noted. According to the Minister, the fact that many students are left without high school certificates demonstrates the existence of a problem. The problem itself is that parents are showing indifferent attitudes towards their children and school in general; they do not express any interest regarding their children’s activities at school.
According to preliminary information, 5,885 high school students of Adjara theoretically could have been able to clear the threshold and pass examinations. Many out of this number did not show up at all during the exams and even more students totally refused participation. Overall, approximately 761 of 12th year students could not pass exams in Adjara.
Tamta Kvaratskhelia, director of the 16th Public School of Batumi, said that these results were determined by several factors; she agreed with the Minister’s perspective that schools do not have authority and that high school students do not attend lessons, while parents do not participate in the process at all.
According to the attendants, some years ago the Ministry of Education made a mistake by decreasing the hours of natural science lessons, which brought about a negative effect. During the certification exams students found it hard to pass exams in natural sciences. On the other hand, math examination results were not positive either. This can be explained by the lack of teachers in this subject.
“My school has this problem, it does not have experienced certified teachers,” Tamta Kvaratskhelia said in her speech. However, according to her analyses, in her school students also failed to produce good results in Georgian language and literature. This trend was explained to the director in the resource center - tests in the humanities were much more difficult than in other subjects.
Speakers also remarked that the results of the certification exams depicted significant flaws of the education system. A development plan is being produced in order to prevent such problems in the future.