Changes are expected in the education system after the new government comes to power.
The national exam system may return to its previous arrangement, although nothing is yet decided, while the identity of the new minister of education is still unknown.
Entrants were passing 3 or 4 exams since 2003, shortly after the rose revolution, when the whole education system was changed.
Former head of the National Exam Center, Maia Miminoshvili, said she was against the changes made by the former education minister Dimitri Shashkin, when she was still leading the center. She claimed the changes were too fast and that more time was needed to see whether they would be successful or not.
Miminoshvili was fired in the end of May, according to the government because of a misunderstanding between her and the education minister.
But Miminoshvili had a different explanation. One day before her dismissal, there was a large demonstration by the opposition party Georgian Dream. Miminoshvili’s son attended the rally. The former leader of the National Examination Center thinks that her firing had a political background.
After Miminoshvili was fired from the ministry, over 60 employees signed a statement about her resignation and left their jobs in solidarity. They established a new non-governmental organization aimed at giving advice to students and the authorities.
Miminoshvili met with the leader of Georgian Dream, Bidizna Ivanishvili, after being fired, but she refused to become a member of his opposition party.
Now, after Georgian Dream has won the parliamentary election, Miminoshvili is considered the most realistic candidate for head of the National Examination Center. She stated on her Facebook page that she’s still against the high school examination system and wants to return to the old system with entrance examinations with 3 or 4 exams.
“We should keep the previous examination system, not to torture entrants with 8 exams. We should form a new system step by step, test it, plan and only after this make a decision,“ Miminoshvili said.
Education reform is one of the reforms which is considered to be most successful after the rose revolution, as well as the police reform, but during recent year the system has received a lot of criticism.
The Georgian Dream coalition has not yet named its candidate for education minister.
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