Saakashvili: State should Help Ethnic Minorities in Education

Poor command of the Georgian language should not be ?an insuperable barrier? for ethnic minorities to enrol in Georgian universities, President Saakashvili said on July 18.

Speaking at a government session, Saakashvili said there was a special state program offering preparatory courses for a hundred ethnic Armenians and a hundred ethnic Azerbaijanis from Samtskhe-Javakheti and Kvemo-Kartli regions, respectively. The intention, he said, was to help them gain university places.

He said it was not the fault of ethnic minorities that they didn?t speak Georgian well.
?This is because we [the authorities] were not well-organized,? he said. ?I want to emphasize that the minorities are urging us to teach them the Georgian language.?
 
Alluding to the fact that most ethnic minority youth prefer to go to university in Armenia, Azerbaijan or Russia, Saakashvili said it was very important to create conditions wherein ?our citizens acquire knowledge, not abroad, but in the capital or other cities of Georgia.?

In its report last year, the Brussels-based think-tank International Crisis Group outlined the inability to speak the state language as ?the minorities? biggest problem.?

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