A textbook case in social integration

Tuesday, February 20, 2007,
The messenger
By David Matsaberidze

As part of its efforts to integrate Georgia's large ethnic minorities into the rest of society, the government is launching a new programme to train non-ethnic Georgian teachers in predominantly Azeri Kvemo Kartli to teach the Georgian language.

The non-Georgian teachers of Kvemo Kartli's secondary schools will receive special training designed mostly to target the ethnic Azeri population of Georgia-the majority in the province. The courses will be offered to teachers of Georgian language and literature in ethnic Armenian and Azeri populated schools in Marneuli, Gardabani, Bolnisi and Tsalka. They will also receive a special textbook called Tavtavi to use as a resource.

Nearly 420 teachers will participate in the project, supported by the Ministry of Education in collaboration with the High Commissioner of Ethnic Minority's Issues of the OSCE.

A representative from the press centre of the Ministry of Education told The Messenger that Tavtavi, the new resource for teachers, is a specially designed workbook for children in the first form. "Parts of the book have already been distributed to some schools and have been very well-received. It is considered a great success," she told the paper.

Reforming textbooks for these areas is an important task, says programme assistant to the research project History Teaching and Representation of Ethnic Minorities in Georgia of the Swiss NGO CIMERA, Lea Gerber. Gerber has been involved in the process of reforming Georgian history books that she says minorities have been completely left out of. She says this contributes to their integration (or lack thereof) into mainstream Georgian society. "A serious shortcoming existed in Georgia's history textbooks when it came to the representation of ethnic minorities that have been living in Georgia for centuries. Their history is simply not mentioned in the textbooks and therefore they do not have a sense of belonging to Georgia. Therefore, the task of including ethnic minorities into mainstream Georgian history requires special attention."

Khakha Gabunia, chairman of the Centre for Civic Integration and Inter-ethnic Relations emphasizes the significance of the Georgian language programme in contributing to ethnic minorities' integration.

"I made submissions myself to the project, being one of the coordinators. This project is very important and will play a significant role in assisting the integration of minorities into mainstream society. The project began in 2002. The first targeted province was Samtskhe-Javakheti [an area predominantly populated by ethnic Armenians], but in 2006, Kvemo Kartli was included in the project. The Ministry of Education of Georgia is a great supporter of projects that promote the teaching of Georgian as a secondary language in schools that are instructing in languages other than Georgian," he says.

Gabunia says the teaching of Georgian is not an effort to assimilate ethnic minorities in Georgia, "The project supports not only teaching the state language of Georgia, but the teaching of the languages of the ethnic minorities as well. The project is not an attempt to assimilate various ethnic minorities of Georgia. On the contrary, it should be seen as an invaluable contribution to the development of multiethnic politics and the building of a multilingual society in Georgia."

Arnold Stepanian, head of the NGO For a Multinational Georgia, told The Messenger that he has certain reservations about the proposal. "I am in favour of the proposed multilingual programme. This is the only real solution to develop the provinces of Kvemo Kartli and Javakheti. But I have to admit there are some weaknesses in the project, making me a bit sceptical about it. The local population has been too passive while trying to implement the project. They must be more active. My guess is that the project's aims have not been effectively and properly explained to the population."

Andrey Khanjin, project manager at the European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI), agrees that the people themselves must first be convinced that it's important to learn Georgian. "The majority of the ethnic minority population do not know the state language and do not show any real interest in learning it. In my opinion, first an awareness raising campaign explaining the importance and advantages of studying the state language of Georgia should be implemented and then once they are ready, this programme should be implemented. But we cannot force them to learn Georgian.

Khanjin believes the introduction of the Georgian language in these areas should be a gradual process and not forced on them all at once. "The language used in civil life in Javakheti is not Georgian. For example, Armenians and Russians use either Russian or Armenian to communicate. I think it would be a good idea to legalise the use of their language [in official bodies] for some period, for example Russian or Armenian, in Javakheti. And at the same time, the teaching of Georgian should be facilitated as well. The languages of ethnic minorities should not be endangered. A special document protecting the minorities' use of their mother tongue is important," explains Khanjin.

Another challenge for ethnic minorities is acquiring a higher education. Not knowing Georgian is their obstacle, Khanjin says.

"This creates a brain drain of the most bright and talented young people [form ethnic minorities] who leave Georgia to study and pursue a career in either Armenia or Russia [if they are ethnic Armenians]. A special language course should be taught to those who want to study at Georgian universities. A short-term solution could be the establishment of a bilingual university in Akhalkalaki [district centre of Samtskhe-Javakheti] where some lectures will be delivered in Russian and others in Georgian."

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.