75% of school entrants choose high education

Georgia’s Minister of Education Aleksandre Jejelava has stated that last year, 75% of entrants made a choice in favour of high education while the only 25% preferred vocational education.

The minister mentioned it was not the right path, and highlighted that the government of Georgia should do its utmost in the coming years to change the statistics.

“A total of 75% of entrants should choose the vocational education, as it is demanded on the market now, while the remaining 25% should get higher education.

“Georgia lacks people with vocational knowledge,” Jejelava added.

Georgia’s Prime Minister, Giorgi Kvirikashvili, has also appealed to students to register and study at the country’s vocational institutions, which now offered "totally renewed” approaches and guaranteed employment after studies, as he said.

In October last year, state vocational learning centres across the country opened registration for more than 200 renewed or new vocational programs.

Kvirikashvili highlighted the importance of the German model of dual education initiated by the current Government of Georgia, which means that students who study at vocational educational centres will be guaranteed a job after completing their studies.

Attitudes towards higher education must change in Georgia, as the country suffers from a very negative and unprofitable Soviet heritance. The system in the Soviet Union practiced very peculiar system. According to which if a person didn’t have higher education, he/she wasn’t considered as a successful person, nor a desirable son-in-law or daughter-in-law. Moreover, the higher education confirming diploma was the way to successful career. Whereas people with vocational education diplomas were considered of lower social standard, therefore the inertia of such mentality still exists here in Georgia. Instead of receiving vocational education and thus ensuring the better chance of getting a job and guarantee employment. The parents invest in supporting their children entering universities and in fact dooming them for problems in search of jobs.

It is a fact that Georgian population does not have enough skills to satisfy demands for different technical operations. For instance, during the works on pipelines on the Georgian territory the employers from BP had difficulties to hire personnel for conducting technical works for instance such as welding and therefore they had to invite the workers from Asian countries.

The similar situation is in other segments as well.

Most of the people who graduate from higher education institutions in Georgia fail to find jobs in the fields they have chosen and remain unemployed, or change their professions later.

The government and those working in the education sector should first of all work to change the public's attitude, and raise awareness of the need and importance of vocational education.