Tbilisi State University professor and sociologist Iago Kachkachishvili sharply criticizes the new education reform, stating that the “one city - one faculty” model is a harmful and distorted principle that inflicts enormous damage on higher education. He published his remarks on social media.
According to Kachkachishvili, this approach - which, he claims, has no analogue in the capitals or major cities of any civilized country - will weaken and “dismember” universities. He argues that the government’s decision will go down as a dark mark in the history of Georgia’s academic life and serve as an example for future generations of how universities can be dismantled.
He also accuses the government of misleading the public by claiming that student admissions will increase by 2,000 this year, while in reality quotas have been drastically reduced across nearly all disciplines. As he notes, although authorities insist that universities previously admitted around 2,600 students in social and political sciences, the new quota allows only 400 - a sixfold decrease.
Kachkachishvili argues that the government justifies these cuts by referring to a labor market study that no one has seen, despite repeated requests. He warns that Georgia's already weak labor market will deteriorate further as thousands of projects cease to exist. “What happens then?” he asks, suggesting that universities may be forced to “retrain to produce bottle-blowers” - referencing an expression used by MP Gia Volski. “Higher education has been turned into a hostage of an underdeveloped labor market, only to make universities just as underdeveloped - and fully controlled by the government,” he concludes.
