The Education, Science and Culture Committee, presided by the Chair, Genadi Margvelashvili, tabled the Committee Action Plan for 2020.

The Action Plan centers upon: production and effectively coordination of evidence-based legislative activities, efficient implementation of Committee oversight and its openness i.e. involvement of citizens, sector representatives, and NGOs in Committee activities.

Conforming to the Committee Chair, the Action Plan enshrines the opinions of MPs Tamar Chugoshvili and Eka Beselia regarding the objectives set for achieving the goals for 2020.

The Committee also discussed the report on activities under the New School Model. The report, along with the Action Plan, was introduced by the Deputy Minister of Education, Ekaterine Dgebuadze.

According to her, the "New School Model" will cover all public schools throughout Georgia by 2024. The Deputy Minister stated that with the involvement of experts, the implementation process, its strengths and weaknesses are constantly analyzed, and the resources and methodology needed for the project implementation are being refined.

The "New School Model" was launched in 2019 at 165 schools, involving 3400 students and 3096 pedagogues countrywide. Along with the 2020 academic year, the project will cover about 300 schools, 96,000 students and 8,000 pedagogues.

The New School Model is a reform that stems from the classroom where each school builds its own individual school model based on the methodology shared by the experts. The reform is expected to serve as the basis for the larger scale follow-up projects within the 2020-2021 academic years.

Pursuant to the Deputy Minister, students, teachers, school administration, parents and experts are involved in the implementation of the student-centered "New School Model".

The “New School Model” also includes evaluating schools based on school culture and students' academic achievement. As a result, individual profiles will be identified by schools, hence revealing their strengths and weaknesses.

Such assessments allow the school to see the real picture and plan specific activities and tackle with the challenges.

The Committee members expressed their views on the "New School Model" and asked the questions to the speaker.

“Education, being the primary concern for the country, has nothing to do with politics. The biggest policy challenge is to have educated, bright-minded future – people who create rather than cram", - Genadi Margvelashvili remarked.