Saakashvili on Importance of Promoting Integration of Minorities

President Saakashvili said on December 25 that promoting integration of ethnic minority groups was among the key priorities of the state.

“Today there is no task more important in Georgia than integration of Georgia’s various ethnic groups, realization by them that they are part of the common state, as well as their engagement in the common statehood process,” Saakashvili said, adding that although in comparison with other post-Soviet and Eastern European states, Georgia had positive birthrate and positive migration balance in recent years, “we still remain a small nation and everyone who lives in Georgia should be given a possibility to be an integral part of our country.”

Saakashvili was speaking while meeting with participants of the state program aimed at encouraging native Georgian speakers to spend a school year in the Georgian regions predominantly populated by ethnic minorities, living in local families and teaching Georgian in local schools; as an incentive, the participants of the program become eligible for the state-funded scholarship for masters degree.

Saakashvili described the participants of the program as “ambassadors of the Georgian statehood” and praised them as “the best Georgians.”

According to the Ministry of Education and Science currently the program has 150 participants and the plan is to increase the number to 500.