This document provides an overview of reforms to higher education in Georgia since the 1980s. It discusses the challenges the system faced in the Soviet era and early independence, including difficult entrance exams, lack of standards, and corruption. Major reforms since 2002 aimed to improve quality, accessibility, and international competitiveness through a unified entrance exam, accreditation requirements, the Bologna Process, and a national qualifications framework. These reforms have helped Georgian universities increase partnerships, research output, and bring the higher education system in line with European standards despite initially facing bitter challenges.

1. The Roots Were Bitter, But the Fruit Was Sweet:
An Overview of Georgian Higher Education Reforms
Co-Authored by Alexander Kvitashvili and Jeffrey Marshall
Universities in Georgia have faced numerous reforms and adjustments since
their infancy. Many of these reforms have manifested significant improvements in
higher education, while others have left something to be desired. In the past eight
years, however, Georgian Higher Education Institutions have made great progress. They
are becoming more and more competitive, and are now on track to join the European
Higher Education Area. All of these improvements have not come without hard work
and effort, though. And this is precisely what I wish to present to all of you – an
overview of the challenges faced and progress made in Georgian Higher Education that
have led to where things are today.
In the not so distant past, higher education in Georgia was in a troublesome
place. During the 1980s and early 90s, there was little cohesion between university
entrance exams and school curriculums. Year after year, the bar of the exams was raised
and secondary schools simply could not keep up with the strenuous pace of the Soviet
government.
To make matters worse, each university had its own additional entrance
requirements. Consequently, students needed to deal with standards that changed
according to each university that were being frequently modified as per the
requirements of the government. Not only did students have to take these complicated
exams, but they also needed to gather information about each university’s
requirements to improve their chances of being accepted. To say the least, these factors
made it incredibly difficult for minority and rural students to access higher education.
Another unfortunate aspect of higher education at the time was that it
popularized using private tutors to effectively “buy” one’s way into college. Due to the
ever-increasing difficulty of the exams, “tutors”, who were often instructors at
universities or had some sort of inside information on the exams, set up shop and did
quite well for themselves. “Students” of said tutors would include signal phrases in their
exams to let the graders know who was a “student” and who wasn’t. Not only was this
an obvious form of corruption, but it also widened the disparity of access to education
between wealthier students and everyone else who could not afford a tutor’s expensive
course, which once again, severely impacted aspiring minority and rural students.
In many cases, students were able to bypass exams entirely through bribery.
Bribes ranged from 8 to 30,000 dollars, depending on the type of educational program.
Medicine and Law were typically the most expensive.

2. Shortly thereafter in 1991, the face of Georgian higher education changed again.
Westernization became a popular notion in Georgia after the country separated from
the Soviet Union. With these changes and new ideology, several new universities
opened. The allure of these universities was that they made higher education very
accessible to students; however, they were oftentimes run by unqualified individuals
and there was no regulated curriculum or required qualifications for the staff. Towards
the end of the 90s and early 2000s, the phenomenon of the “street corner” university
appeared – several universities opened wherein whoever could pay his or her tuition
could get a degree. By the end of 2002, there were 214 private and 26 public higher
education institutions in Georgia – the quality of many, unfortunately, was dubious.
Around this time, the government of Georgia recognized that there was a
considerable issue in need of resolution within the higher education system.
Improvements were a must. The country needed standards and regulations. It envisaged
independence, competiveness, accountability and transparency, and equality as its most
important goals. With those key values in mind, the government issued the Main
Directions of Higher Education Development in Georgia in March of 2002. This document
identified the areas of higher education that were suffering, as well as established an
outline for what needed to be accomplished in order for Georgia to reach its goals.
Within the Main Directions, the document noted the problems of elitism within the
Georgian education system. It also addressed the need for creating standards for
universities and their staff. Overall, the document recognized that the state of higher
education in Georgia, at the time, was in a tough place and drastic changes were
necessary.
In 2003, Georgia went through the “Rose Revolution” – the outcome of which
reformed higher education and the Georgian government at large in pretty drastic ways.
Positions were redefined, ministries were restructured – the government was headed in
a completely new and exciting direction. In 2005, the Ministry of Education and Science
introduced the “Unified National Entrance Examinations” (UNEEs). Just like the title
implies, the UNEEs created a unified exam procedure that all universities needed to
adhere to.
Unlike the esoteric university-specific exams of years past, the UNEE is a
standardized and transparent exam – all secondary schools can integrate it into their
curriculums seamlessly. Additionally, the exam works to examine all aspects of a student
- not only their acquired knowledge, but also their skills, abilities, as well as their
potential. It is not a purely knowledge-based test. The benefit of this approach is that it
works to the advantage of students in areas that are unable to provide as high of a
quality of education as found in larger cities. The test works to reveal their talents and
potential as students outside of their ability to rote-memorize of historical events and
numbers. Although the number of enrolled students decreased in total, as compared to
1999-2004, more regions in Georgia are represented in the total number of enrolled
students.

3. The UNEE was not the only significant change implemented – quality assurance
measures were also imposed. This process required introducing new offices, positions
and structures within the university, as well as changes within curriculum design. This
had severe implications for universities all across Georgia - many students at
unaccredited universities transferred to accredited institutions, and in some cases,
universities were denied the ability to accept new students until they met accreditation
requirements.
In 2004, Georgia enacted the Law of Georgia on Higher Education, a law
specifically designed to help align Georgia’s higher education system with that of its
western peers. The law seeks to promote democracy, transparency, equal opportunity
and autonomy among all Higher Education Institutions in Georgia. Additionally, the
Ministry of Education and Science, in alignment with the Bologna Process, has required
all Georgian institutions to adopt quality assurance measures, such as the ECTS credit
system, developing diploma supplements and methods of recognizing foreign credits.
Georgia became a member of the Bologna Process in 2005. This has also had a
direct and visible impact on the structure of Georgian HEIs. Now, all universities have
adopted the “three cycle system” comprised of BA, MA, and PhD programs. Some of the
previously mentioned changes are also a part of the tandem work of the Law of Georgia
on Higher Education and the Bologna Process.
The National Qualifications Framework (NQF for short) for Higher Education was
approved in 2010, which designates the qualifications for all levels of higher education
that exist within Georgia. This framework works to “translate”, so to speak, the
qualifications of higher education institutions in Georgia into terms understandable to
the European Higher Education Area. Consequently, NQF increases the transparency of
Georgian qualifications on the international level, which is beneficial to both Georgian
universities and their students.
Quality Assurance is a priority of current higher education reforms. The National
Education Accreditation Center (NEAC) was established in 2006. NEAC provided an
external quality assurance system for Georgian HEIs through a multi-stage accreditation
process. Additionally, every HEI must also have an internal Quality Assurance office that
communicates regularly with the NEAC’s successor – the National Center for Education
Quality Enhancement (EQE). EQE works to ensure the reliability of credentials, promote
the movement of all students and academic personnel through mobility opportunities
and participation in learning, teaching, and research activities, to name a few.
Since 2006, TSU has established 160 partnerships with universities across the
world, with its most active partnerships being in Germany and the Netherlands. We
have several joint degree programs in Business Administration, Public Administration,
and Law. We can attribute much of this development to the recent reforms that the

4. Georgian higher education system has embraced. Focusing on Quality Assurance and
Internationalization has proven to be incredibly effective in improving the opportunities
available at TSU.
Another one of the outcomes of focusing on Quality Assurance at TSU was a
study that was done on improving the quality of research performed within the
university. What would it take? What areas were strong already, and what others
needed some help? The result of this endeavor was to centralize 15 previously separate
research institutions. Since this event, the amount of sponsored research proposals at
TSU has increased drastically – from 129 sponsored proposals in 2009 to 312 in 2011.
Coming back to my opening statement – Georgia’s higher education system has
seen and partaken in several changes – from the “street corner universities” of the past
to becoming home to world-class, competitive, and innovative institutions. In his poem,
“Advice to Scholars”, Davit Guramishvili, a famous 18th century Georgian poet, said that
“bitter roots yield *the+ sweetest fruit*s+”. I feel that this statement perfectly parallels
the challenges that the Georgian higher education system has faced – the drastic
reforms required to create high-quality institutions are difficult to meet, but the end
results are what make it worth the effort.
Thank you very much for your time.