Economic Education and Problems of Preparation of Business Specialists

LALI CHAGELISHVILI

Georgian education system is going through a very hard period. The reforms started rather a long time ago but what they will give us is a subject of heated debates within the society.

Everyone admits that Georgian education system is to be changed but the implementation of the reforms causes dissatisfaction.
The beginning of reorganization in any sphere starts with analyzing of the existing basis, revealing of its strong and weak points, and establishing of cause-and-effect relations. The reorganization of the education system in our country took place without the above-mentioned conditions and it was like a bolt from the blue for the public. Shock therapy in the economy, shock therapy in education, the same thing in science and who knows what Georgian people will have to go through before they start to live a normal life. But for the time being Georgian state and private higher educational establishments have to go through this chaotic and painful process. These reforms are being carried out with lightning speed and were planned to be finished in 2010- 2011, but now the completion of their implementation is scheduled for 2007. This reminds of a slogan from the recent past “five year plan in one year”.We asked deputy Minister of Education Mr. Teimuraz Samadashvili to answer the questions concerning the existing problems in the system of higher education in Georgia and the completion of the reforms.
– Mr. Temur, the reform of higher education in Georgia is being implemented this year. What regards this the public has a lot of questions. In your opinion, how well is this reform acceptable for Georgia? Was a copy-book truth, that not everything is equally suitable for different countries, taken into account?
– The experience of the leading countries of the world was considered and after this a plan of the reform was drawn taking into account the realities and experience of our country.
– Has a similar reform been carried out before elsewhere and what was the result?
– In the majority of East European countries the reorganization of the education system was carried out for integration into the single European space, in the majority of European countries the reforms are still being carried out (for example in Finland, Estonia, etc.);
– What was the determination of the admission quotas (the volume of the contingent) to Georgian higher educational establishments (private and state ones) based on? Was that made by using some model or a market research was carried out?
– In the accredited higher educational establishments of Georgia quotas on the contingent were set according to their material and technical resources.
– The population has doubts that those persons who deserve it will not get a state grant and those who use dirty methods will take their place. What transparency mechanism exists to dissipate these doubts?
– Uniform state examinations practically rule out the participation of interested persons in the evaluation the process, in particular, a proof-reader does not know whose work he checks. Examinations and knowledge evaluation takes place under the supervision of the public and press.
– What is the point of the appeal if the appellant is not shown his mistakes because of which he did not get a wishful mark? Why cannot the entrant defend his work?
– It is done in order not to allow taking of a subjective decision.
– Why an entrant is not allowed to take out his work? After all, there are other tests for the second group.
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– The first stage of accreditation of higher educational establishments has finished. More than a hundred of higher educational establishments did not get the accreditation because of technical reasons (building, floor-space, etc.). And what if in two years they will meet the above-mentioned criteria and demand a definite number of students? Will they receive the license and the right for admitting the contingent in this case?
– Any higher educational establishments, which meet the standards and will get the accreditation, will be entitled to admit students.
– Don’t you think that this year’s entrants got under the press? The children that have to face these reforms and were passing from one form to another without any exams, and they are not used to examinations; they are not familiar with the situation at the examination, time limit, etc. On top of all, the time of the examination period has been reduced and this fact was published in the press not long ago. What was the reason for that? Would you comment on it?
– After the adoption of the law on higher education, the Ministry of Education and Science put a question concerning the conduction of uniform state examinations and the public was informed about it a long time ago. As to the finals, their liquidation has been made for the entrants to have more time for the preparation for the uniform state examination. In the majority of schools there took place a consideration of the principles of conduction of uniform state examinations and all unclear matters were explained to them. As to the first step, it is always associated with certain difficulties, but the ministry, by means of the assessment center, tries to eliminate all kinds of stress situations, for instance in Batumi there was held a rehearsal of the examination process which was of great interest with the public and provided answers to many questions.
– The monitoring carried out in schools has shown very poor results. Have you taken this fact into account for making alternative variants of examination tests, or the monitoring was carried out for the future?
– The monitoring was carried out within the framework of the reform, which has shown us a lamentable condition of current education system and helped to outline the ways for improvement of the curriculum and methodology.
– After the exams 13 thousand students (probably even more) should provide their self-financing while based on the current social situation most part of the population does not have the subsistence minimum. How can they pay even minimal sum of 1500 GEL?
– In the past years more entrants entered higher educational establishments (in private sector) and the quality of education there was rather poor. Thus they paid the same sum for this low quality.
The ministry hopes that those good entrants, who will become students, will get assistance and credits from various donors and financial establishments, and this practice is prevalent in many foreign countries as well.
– The government started to carry out attestation of staff in the higher educational establishments. What will happen after the attestation?
– Curriculums will be put in good order, and by means of the effective use of the staff the system of wages will also be regulated, which is the basis of the process of improvement of the quality of the educational process.
– Higher education, guided by modern international standards, needs skilled professors that should possess not only theoretical knowledge but practical experience as well. In your opinion, is there this kind of stuff in Georgia today? If not, what is the reason for that?
– We have professors with rather a high level of qualification, who have necessary knowledge and experience for teaching according to European standards. The main problem was bad management, which consisted in inefficient use of our scientific potential (low salary, bad curriculums, lack of financing of research studies, etc.).
– The quality of education depends on stimuli. Don’t you think that when you require quality the work should be appraised correspondingly? Are there any changes on this issue concerning the lecturers of higher educational establishments?
– The attestation and accreditation are the beginning of the process as a result of which the above-mentioned processes will be solved. After the principal decisions taken by the Georgian government, the volume of financing per student is considerably increasing, and, correspondingly, raising of salaries of professors and lecturers will also take place.
– What do you think, what is in store for the entrants that will fail to enter the higher educational establish and replenish army of unemployed people?
– The Ministry of Education and Science has elaborated a concept of professional education the presentation of which took place a week ago. According to this concept, the creation of centers of professional education is envisaged in which one can receive not only basic knowledge for further education but secondary professional education as well.
As to the educational reform, each head of a higher educational establishment has his own approach to it, which does not repudiate the necessity and obligation of its implementation, but depending on specificity of a higher educational establishment they have certain views and remarks on this issue. But unfortunately the current reform still does not solve the problem of economic education and preparation business specialists, and each respondent noted this fact.
The director of the International School of Management (ESM – High School) Mr. Suliko Kadagidze believes that uniform state examinations are necessary but it should not be the only way of entering a higher educational establishment. The state should take into account the specificity of both state and private higher educational establishments and permit them to choose the contingent after the uniform state examination. In particular, according to Mr. Suliko’s words it was desirable to send the kind of contingent that in the first place had marked ESM. And the Institute, by means of interviews, would choose 56 best entrants.
It is known that in High School of Management the priority is given to foreign languages (German and English). Lectures in the third and fourth years of studies are completely conducted in foreign languages. That is why we fully understand the concern expressed by the leadership of the Institute that after the uniform state examination the contingent of students may be not well prepared at the appropriate level, which in the end will have an impact on their competitive ability. In spite of a big struggle, the proposals of the Institute’s leadership were not taken into consideration by the Ministry and ESM will be liable to the uniform state examination. “This undermines competitive environment and contributes to creation of new sources of corruption” – our respondent stresses. In this situation the leadership of the Institute has only two way outs ( a bad and a worse ones): the first one is not to expel bad students and continue working on the same basis, and the second one – to expel them, and then take money from the left minority of good students for financial provision of the Institute.
The ESM’s administration has taken certain measures for creation of future financial guarantees, as a result of which American Chamber of Commerce has promised them to finance less well-to-do students. Besides the above mentioned, the Institute has other choices as well. In particular, contracts will be concluded with students at the moment of their enrolment, according to which students are obliged to pay 1200 GEL after they are enrolled. If the Institute receives a voucher before the new year a student will pay only the difference. If the state fully pays a student’s tuition fees, the money will be given back to him. Because of the changes in the amount of tuition fees, the Institute does not plan to increase it more than it was initially stated in its statute (tuition fees annually increase by 10%).
High School of Management gives economic education and prepares business specialists based on modern requirements occupying 75% of the market though it can prepare even more specialists. According to the statement of Suliko Kadagidze, every year 97,5% of graduates are placed in a job. The majority of them works in the banking sector. Mainly, without any privileges and guarantees, students of ESM’s preparation department and lyceum (10-12 places) that had the right of taking entrance examinations twice were enrolled in the Institute. The first examination period was a month earlier than usual examination time, and the second one was at the usual examination time. It was necessary for the entrants to get minimum a four (good) in the subjects, otherwise he was not enrolled to the High School of Business. Those entrants who could not enter ESM on the basis of general competition had a third opportunity of enrollment after the above-mentioned stages.
10-12 places in the Institute were provided for ESM’s lyceum. As Mr. Suliko explained to us, the lyceum is an independent legal structure that has nothing to do with the Institute from administrational point of view.
Today, all of this does not exist and we have to fulfill the decision concerning the uniform state examination, since if we hadn’t fulfilled it we would not have received accreditation and the boys that study in our Institution would have been drafted to the army – Mr. Suliko said.
It is a vivid display of the Ministry’s monopolistic position, it is undemocratic and kills competition. In this case production legislation is broken too since according to it the Institute has organizational and legal status of LTD, and there takes place a gross violation of the Institute’s statute on the Ministry’s part.
The first stage of the reform started with institutional accreditation, which should promote formation of competitive higher educational establishments and improve the quality of education in future.
– During institutional accreditation higher educational establishments were saved from closing down mainly based on their technical characteristics (floor space, equipment, etc.) and there is not a single characteristic that envisages quality. After the accreditation among the 110 higher educational establishments that are left there are a lot of those ones that have the right to enroll 5,6 or 10 students and the tuition fees there amount to 600 GEL. How can they provide for the educational process in future? … Probably some comments are unnecessary here. From Mr. Suliko’s point of view, accreditation must be carried out by an independent organization that has nothing to do with the state.
One of the existing problems that have been revealed is a problem of attraction of different financial sources for financing state higher educational establishments. The budgets of the leading higher educational establishments of different countries that exceeds 1 billion USD are financed from private sources. The state finances their budget only by 30 % (the University of Beijing – 1.400 thousand USD; the Ural State University – 1 billion USD; Moscow State University – 300 million USD). The salary of lecturers is also an acute problem, which is the main reason of low quality of education. And, finally, as to quality assessment. Who assesses it now? – People who do not know how to do it. I want to stress the fact the reform should be carried out but without any haste, in order not to make more mistakes.
The quality of education does not come to reforms only. It needs systematic provision to be able to correspond to the requirements of the time and be competitive at the international level. We asked the acting head of the University – Mrs. R Lortkipanidze to comment on these issues since she is involved in solving the problems connected to the reform but she could not give her answers though she had promised that in the nearest future she would give us information on the current events in the University. Meanwhile a decision has already been taken in the University concerning liquidation of the expanded academic council. It will be replaced by two structures: representative council and academic council that will be appointed by the head of the University. The representative council will deal with administrative issues and the academic council will deal with scientific matters. According to the statement of the University’s leadership, the existence of the representative council will contribute to quick settlement of administrative issues.
Time will show how better the representational council will be than those administrative units that now exist in Tbilisi State University and whose work is disapproved of by the majority of the University’s stuff. As yet, we have achieved that the departments of economics and management, and micro economics of Ivane Javakhishvily Tbilisi State University do not stand by waiting for the reform but actively participate it improving the quality of higher education.
Scientific centers have been created in both departments, where active scientific and research work is being carried out. A vivid example of this is that on May 21 Georgian Center of Economic Education and Development, with the assistance of the Ministry of Education and Science and with the financing of the National Fund of Economic Education of the US, held a rewarding ceremony of schoolchildren – the participants of all Georgian economic olimpiad that took place in Sakartvelo Hotel.
Forty finalists were rewarded with diplomas and special gifts, and those who took the second and the third places received colored TV sets. As to the winner, who took the first place, he received a computer. School olimpiad in economics was held in three stages. The first stage was held on the basis of regional education departments. One thousand and two hundred students from 195 schools, where economics is taught, took part in the olimpiad. Out of the given number of participants 168 managed to get to the second stage. And out of 168 participants only 43 got the right to become finalists. Among the members of the honorary jury of the third stage (which was held on Saturday, May 21) were: an officer of the adminitratve department of the Peace Corps – Adam Jagelski, deputy Minister of Education and Science of Georgia – Temur Samadashvili, executive director of Georgian Federation of Businessmen – Giorgi Isakadze, deputy dean of the economics department of Ivane Javakhishvily Tbilisi State University – professor Eteri Kharaishvili, and economics teacher of school N 54 – Luisa Khaladze.
The director of Georgian Economic Education and Development Center – Nino Talakhadze stresses that the main objective of the olimpiad is popularization of economic education among schoolchildren.
“The objective of the olimpiad is intensification of students’ knowledge, revelation and encouragement of clever, industrial and educated students that are interested in economics. Another objective is establishing scientific, creative, and methodical relations between schools from different regions of Georgia” – she said. A scientific center, whose purpose is to introduce active teaching methods in higher educational establishments is backed up by Open Society Institute. On May 14-15, in Tbilisi Institute of Economic Relations, under the leadership of Candidates of Economic Sciences, assistant professors and regional NESP’s managers – Maia Gonashvili and Nino Davitaia, a seminar on the subject of specificity of corporate education and active forms and methods of teaching in higher educational establishments was held.
The Ukrainian part was represented at this seminar by NESP’s director, Candidate of Economic Science, assistant professor Sergei Yakubovski and madam Larisa Kirilyuk.
Both parts that participated in the seminar presented the results of the first year on the following day after the seminar (a similar seminar was held in 2000 at the Small Academy), they shared their experience concerning teaching with the use of the new methods. The participants of the seminar received special diplomas.
“A week later the seminar continued its work in the regions starting from Batumi, where it had a big response and then ended successfully”- the regional director of the project Maia Gonashvili stressed.
Right and professional management is a solid guarantee of any business. Today our society lacks it. For the support of management teaching and quality raising, at the department of management and micro economics there was created a scientific and advisory center that simultaneously with the start of the reform got down to investigational activities. On the basis of monitoring the center carried out a market research and in the future it will help Tbilisi State University to select the contingent according to the economic type. The scientific and research center is at the same time working at social issues, labor market and employment policy.
In spite of the fact that the center was created not long ago, it has global tasks. “The advisory center is not a tribute to the time” – its head stressed. It is a fruit of the youth collective’s ideas, which now has a fertile field. Today many organizations and businessmen need consultations on management issues. The way should be led by students, masters; professors and lecturers also need support and they by means of the center will take part in various scientific researches, conferences and seminars; in the end conditions necessary for sustainable development, competitive environment, quality improvement and achieving the European standards will be created. The center hopes that the economic department and various funds will render assistance in the implementation of the above-mentioned tasks, all the more it already has the support of the Ministry of Education and Science. Professors and lecturers of the department are the core of the center, but “it is not closed for those people who want to work there” –its members stressed. Our circle is already rather wide, and the number of like-minded persons is constantly growing in it. Time will show the rest.jpg BORDER=0 ALIGN=center>
P.S. The issue was ready to be published when according to the rector, professor Rusudan Lortkipanidze’s order the following departments were joined together: economic, micro economic and management, commerce and marketing, international business (business law department does not belong here). Now all of them represent a single department of economics and business. Now only six departments are left in the University.
Those professors and lecturers who came to get their salary on June 27 were shown a new order. In particular 700 scientific workers did not get their salary for the reason that they, allegedly, are not staff members of the University. This fact gave rise to anger of professors and lecturers of the University. They protested against the breach of human rights, morality and ethical norms. On June 27, the intellectuals that gathered in the assembly hall of Ivane Javakhishvily Tbilisi State University demanded the rector – R.Lordkipanidze’s reply to the above-mentioned facts, but she declared that she did not know anything about what had happened and that she had not signed anything. By this she actually admitted her incompetence as an administrator. The University intellectuals is not going to keep silence and start activities for carrying out transparent and truly national reforms, and in this relation they make demands of the Georgian President and the rector of the University. This decision was supported by different political parties and the representatives of different higher educational establismnents that were present at the meeting in the assembly hall of the University that day.