On March 21, 2017, Public Defender Ucha Nanuashvili, Deputy Public Defender Ekaterine Skhiladze and representatives of the Centre of Tolerance of the Public Defender met with the Minister Education and Science, Alexandre Jejelava.

Issues relating to civil integration, protection of the rights of national and religious minorities, including freedom of religion, creation of tolerant environment at schools, reflection of religious and ethnic diversities in school books and new mechanisms for the creation of textbooks, were discussed at the meeting. Other topics of discussion were the Ministry’s vision concerning continuation of bilingual education, implementation of additional educational programs for students of higher education institutions, training and retraining of teachers, creation of textbooks for ethnic minority schools and other issues.

Alexandre Jejelava noted that new textbooks will be ready for schoolchildren of I-VI grades for September and that the Public Defender‘s Office, experts and NGOs will be engaged in filling the gaps in the process.

Deputy Public Defender Ekaterine Skhiladze highlighted the rights of persons with disabilities and their enrolment in the institutions of higher education. She also spoke about the problem of early marriage and asked the Minister to take measures for the prevention of the problem.

Alexandre Jejelava expressed readiness to discuss all important issues and stressed the importance of strengthening the research component in order to make problems and successes more measurable and duly evaluate the processes.

The sides agreed to further cooperate and hold a meeting with the Councils of National Minorities and Religions of the Public Defender.