The Georgian government has unveiled a concept for higher education reform, which includes changes to the university funding system and the redistribution of faculties. Critics have already expressed concern over the possible consequences of the process, announced amidst the ruling party’s growing hostility toward dissent within academia.
At the presentation held on Thursday, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze outlined seven areas the government intended to focus on.
Among the issues identified by the state were what it called the ‘excessive geographical concentration’ of higher education institutions, the ‘irrational’ use of resources, and the ‘uneven quality’ of teaching across universities, as well as a ‘disorganised personnel policy’ and a ‘flawed funding system’.
The list also included a ‘weak link between higher education priorities and labour market demands’, the lack of modern-standard academic programmes, and infrastructural issues.
According to the documents, 85% of students receive their education in Tbilisi, leading to large-scale migration from the regions and excessive pressure on the capital. As a solution, the government proposed strengthening regional universities.
Citing the need to ‘optimise resources and equalise the quality of education across universities’, the state also announced its intention to introduce a ‘one city — one faculty’ model.
The authors stated that in some cities, multiple state universities have ‘duplicated faculties’, which in practice ‘creates the problem that no state university is fully staffed with academic personnel meeting modern qualification standards’.
The new plan involves redistributing the faculties currently operating within different state universities in Tbilisi to specific universities, ‘essentially taking into account their traditional profiles and historical experience’.
For the same purpose, the government also announced another plan, which envisions introducing a 3+1 system in higher education institutions — three years dedicated to undergraduate studies and the remaining one year to a master’s programme.
Additionally, according to the concept, ‘state universities should admit foreign students only in cases permitted by law’, noting that currently some universities ‘pay excessive attention to attracting foreign students, which reduces the university resources that should be allocated to preparing Georgian students in the relevant fields’.
The government also intended to ‘completely revise’ the current grant-based university funding system and replace it with a ‘state-order model’.
‘Under this model, each university’s state order would be determined based on national priorities’, the document read.
The authors further stated that ‘when allocating funds, the average cost of providing education per student for each specialty should be appropriately taken into account’.
The concept also highlighted that most academic staff work part-time for low pay. To address this, it proposed making full-time professors the core of university personnel with higher salaries, while ‘all other instructors should work at universities on a contractual, hourly basis’.
While not included in the original concept, Kobakhidze added that the Education Ministry is working on another change affecting school education, which would reduce the duration from 12 to 11 years.
‘One problem is that the curriculum for the final grades is not aligned with the entrance exams. Under such conditions, students are not motivated to attend school’, he added.
‘Political control’ over academia
The Georgian Dream government began discussing the need to ‘transform’ the university system as early as January 2025, with Kobakhidze stating that the quality of higher education in the country is not satisfactory, despite the ‘very large resources’ available for this purpose.
‘It is entirely possible for a Georgian student to receive the same quality of higher education in Georgia in four years as they would in European countries’, he said at the time.
It was at that time that the formation of a commission to work on the reform was announced, headed by Kobakhidze himself. Education Minister Givi Mikanadze serves as his deputy, while his advisor on education and science, Levan Izoria, was appointed as his secretary. Izoria had previously held positions as Defence Minister and Deputy Interior Minister.
The commission also included cabinet ministers, as well as the Mayor of Tbilisi, Kakha Kaladze.
Kobakhidze criticised opposition-minded professors in the past, linking them to the former government under the United National Movement (UNM) party, which is reviled by Georgian Dream.
In response to Kobakhidze’s Thursday presentation, education expert and member of the newly formed opposition party Freedom Square, Simon Janashia, pointed to the involvement of the university community in anti-government movements, noting that this is a problem for the ruling party.
Janashia has suggested that Georgian Dream ‘does not have control’ over students and professors due to the autonomy of universities, including the fact that universities receive only a small portion of their funding from the state.
‘The state does not have the means to manipulate professors and students through funding’, he said, noting that behind the desire to change the current grant model lies the ruling party’s intention to establish ‘political control’ over academia.
‘The state-order system means that the government will decide which universities to fund and which not to, something it does not do today’, he added during his party’s Facebook Live session.
Janashia pointed to the expected restriction on admitting foreign students to state universities — who typically pay higher fees — as another mechanism of financial control, emphasising that the ‘exceptional cases’ mentioned in the plan would be determined at the state’s discretion.
‘The allowance of exceptions clearly depends on whether you serve the [ruling] party or not’, he added.
Critics have also expressed concern over the government’s plan to redistribute faculties among universities across the country and focus specific institutions on particular academic fields.
Tamar Tsopurashvili, a professor in the field of philosophy at the Tbilisi-based Ilia State University (ISU), said that under the proposed reform, ‘we will simply no longer have universities in Georgia’.
Shota Kincha
‘Faculties scattered across the country will hinder, among other things, scientific communication, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research, and the capacity to generate new knowledge — in other words, what a university exists for’, she added.
Others have criticised the plans to reduce school education to 11 years, amidst concerns that it will make it more difficult for Georgian students to continue their studies in EU countries and the US, where secondary education typically lasts for 12 years.
In response, Kobakhidze stated that the government’s priority is for young Georgians to stay in the country and pursue higher education locally.
However, Kobakhidze said that the government might make exceptions for students who want to go through 12th grade, or that students may ‘complete the 12th grade abroad’ and then return for university education in Georgia.
Kobakhidze’s response was sharply denounced by Nana Dikhaminjia, a professor of computer engineering and a vocal critic of Georgian Dream.
‘[Kobakhidze] is such a fool that he doesn’t realise — children from poor families used to attend [European and US] universities fully funded and live in the dorms’, she wrote on Facebook, adding:
‘How many parents can afford to move abroad for a year just so their child can [finish] school there?’
Tamar Mchedlidze
