Public Information that the Ministry Tries to Conceal

In the interview with the newspaper “Alia” ESFTUG president, Maia Kobakhidze talked about the public information that was requested from the Ministry of Education and Science but no answer has been received yet. The data requested includes the following:

· The number of teachers who are registered for certification exams and teachers who participated in free trainings offered by the government.

The necessity of requesting the information arose due to different numbers published by World Bank and the Ministry. Particularly, according to World Bank, there were 13 000 teachers registered for the exms and 8 000 attended the trainings, while the deputy-Minister, Koka Seperteladze stated that 20 000 educators were registered and 12 000 participated in training course.

Ms Kobakhidze also mentioned that rights of non-certified teachers are violated. She specified that some directors do not give relevant teaching hours to uncertified teachers, however, according to law, certification is a voluntary action until 2014. ESFTUG president stressed that ESFTUG has been undergoing pressure from the government for more than year and directors are still afraid of signing collective agreements with ESFTUG.