Title: There is an Obvious Progress in our Minds  - Newspaper: “24 Saati” (24 Hours)

 Interview with Maia Miminoshvili

As it turned out, the greater part of our society is more interested in the changes in the educational system, than in the political arena. For example: Goga is better than Goka, Goka surpasses Koka, Koka is better than Koko, who is better Koko or Kako, or Kako and Ako? Nowadays the most interesting question behind the scenes or in the offices is: How many exams do schoolchildren have to pass – four or ten, or both, ten and four? This is about the new rules we are going to introduce in Unified Entry Examinations. During this month “24 Saati” took an interview from the Minister of Education and Sciences twice. Despite the fact that our intention was not to mislead the Georgian public, readers would discover some opposite opinions as well. It appears that everything was revealed before a joint action plan was even developed. Gradually more details will be defined and hopefully, there will be less confused schoolchildren, teachers and parents by the next academic year.

The Director of National Examination Center Maia Miminoshvili is answering our questions with the mathematical accuracy. As mathematics is the precise science, we confirm that ten is more than four. So we advise future students not to miss the lessons and get ready for exams.       

-  I am a bit confused – how many exams will the future students have to take and how will these exams be carried out?

I will explain very simply: Imagine that you are finishing your school and you want to proceed with higher education. You will register yourself (as it is from 2005) and mark the faculty and the university you want to study at. You have to pass three compulsory and one selective exam depending on the faculty you are going to attend. What has changed is, those, who want to graduate from schools and at the same time, continue studying at the universities, have to pass 10 exams instead of 4. Now let us explain this part as well: In order for a child to graduate from school, he needs a high school diploma. He/she will be able to receive this diploma, if he/she passes 10 exams and crosses minimal competency level. Only the applicants with high school diplomas will have the ability to continue higher education (at the universities they have marked during the registration process).

- If a schoolchild crosses the minimal competency level and receives the high school diploma, will he/she have to pass additional exams?

Let me underline, he/she will not have to pass additional exams. It is needless for him/her to pass four exams once again, if he/she already passed these exams in order to receive a high school diploma. If a schoolchild crossed the minimum competency level and received the high school diploma, it means that he/she has certain scores. The competition between the children for passing higher university entry exams will be based on to these scores. I repeat one more time: Only by passing these ten exams can a child receive a high school diploma and higher education at the same time. It is evident, the better the results – the more chances to enter the university. I would also like to note that these exams will be held at our examination centers from July 2011.

- If a schoolchild cannot cross the minimal competency level in one of the subjects, will he/she still be able to receive a high school diploma?

In nearest future we will inform the society with more details about the exams in 2011.Of course, we are going to clarify this issue more specifically. The number of exams to receive the high school diploma is not limited. If a child receives the diploma and he/she does not try to pass the entry exams (or he/she could not pass them), the next year he/she will pass only four exams.

- What about the material and human resources, it is very difficult for only 14 examination centers to hold ten exams. . .

Naturally, we will need more examination centers and they will all be equipped like the other centers. We understand that the future student will have to go to the examination centers ten times instead of four and this creates great discomfort for regional students especially. That is why we plan to open examination centers in all regional centers. It is clear, that we will have to mobilize more resources, but not much to harm the country.

- Until now, the unified entry exams were not free of charge. So does it mean that from now on, the future students will have to pay for ten exams instead of for four? . .  

On the contrary, general education is fully financed by the government in our country, so students will not have to pay anything.

- I would like to ask you about the certification for teachers. We understand, that those teachers, who will go through the certification process, will be paid more. What about those teachers, who may not able to pass the certification exams?

Certification exams for teachers will be held in examination centers in Tbilisi and in the regions. Teachers, who will not be able to pass the exams or do not participate in the certification process, will still be employed as before. We do not want to deceive ourselves and believe that we will have certified teachers in all schools after two-three years.

For example, the teacher, who successfully passed the certification exams, will not go to work to the village for years. What do we do in such case? We cannot leave a school without a teacher. Of course, this doesn’t mean that teachers, who work nowadays in the village schools, will not be able to pass the certification exams.

- How many exams will the teachers have to pass to receive certificates and when will the examinations be held?

This exams will be held in July, 2010 too and only for the teachers of Georgian Language and Literature, Mathematics and Foreign Languages. At this stage, only two exams will be held: in the professional abilities and in those three subjects, that hey teach. From the next year, teachers of other subjects will also have to pass the certification exams, but we must remember that taking the certification exams is voluntary.

- Unified Entry Exams are one of the main achievements of the current government. But it is also true, that the preparation process for the exams began during the  former government, when the Minister of Education and Science was Alexander Kartozia.

Adoption of Unified Entry Exams was a political will of the current government in 2005. Personally for me the most important period was the time when we had opportunities and resources to get prepared for this exams ( I mean 1998-2004 years). I declare with full responsibility that without that preparation time, it would be impossible to hold the Unified Entry Exams in 2005. The project for Unified Entry Exams was written in 2003 and we were going to implement it in 2006-2007 years. But there were constant fears that the Rectors would get irritated, that the government was not ready for this steps and so on. The new government came to power in 2003 and declared that it had to be done and we did it. By the way, the first version of the project envisaged the high school graduation exams as well. But the new Minister, Aleksander Lomaia, abolished all the exams at schools and we had to focus only on the entry exams. Besides the political will, I think that the great merit of the current government is that it gave us an opportunity to continue our project. It is a rare nature for a politician to respect a person by his/her professionalism versus which Minister he/she worked for.  

- I want to finish our interview with the same question I have asked the Minister of Education and Science and I hope you will not avoid answering it: How come the future teachers graduating from the most successful university (Ilia Chavchavadze University) had the worst results according to one of the international research?

Let us begin with the fact that this international research was only to identify qualification of future teachers of Math. I do not understand how this news was spread in the media. Firstly, I this is not true and secondly, the results of this research have not been published yet and how are the journalists spreading such news? Let us discuss this issue when the research is over. To tell you the truth, I avoided this question on purpose, because I think that publishing incomplete information harms the reputation of our country.