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From left to right: Mariam Gogosashvili, student at GIPA, Temo Kakhidze, student at University of Patriarchate and Elene Beriashvili, student at Tbilisi State University. (Click to watch video.) (DF Watch.)

TBILISI, DFWatch–On September 6, DF Watch organized a discussion about the difficulties youth are having finding employment.

We invited students from three different universities to share their views on youth unemployment.

They agree that there are problems, but differ on whose responsibility it is to solve them.

What they agree on is that generally in Georgia there is a problem of unemployment and the issue of unemployed students makes this problem even more difficult. Students aren’t able to work full time because of their studies.

Elene Beriashvili, a student at Tbilisi State University, says the government and the universities should be responsible for providing youth with employment, because today, the way many youth find a job is through friends or relatives and it is necessary to change this habit.

She says the government should have specific programs for students, or require universities to offer internships for students.

The two other participants in our discussion disagree. They agree that employment of students is a problem today, but Temo Kakhidze, who studies at the Patriarchate University, and Mariam Gogosashvili, a student at Georgian Institute of Public Affairs, think students should take the initiative to go on internships themselves and this way they will be able to find some way out and find a place to go.

Kakhidze illustrates this with his own experience of how he managed to move out of unemployment and thinks that if a person has motivation, especially student and young person, they will be able to find some job.

Another problem is compatibility of education level to the requirements on job descriptions. But they disagree about how to solve this problem.

Beriashvili thinks the government should solve the problem and regulate better, as according to surveys, more than 90 percent of youth are challenged by this problem.

She thinks the level of education offered at universities is low and that the government should take care it’s not something shameful to have a diploma from a university. Instead studying and specializing is a good thing, but people should be able to be successful without a diploma too, she adds.

All three agree that unemployment among students is a complex problem that needs a similarly complex approach to solve.