About 14,000 applicants fail teachers’ qualification exams
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Thursday, September 1
More than 13, 500 teachers and those wishing to be teachers out of the 17, 137 registered applicants have failed to overcome a minimal threshold proving their qualifications and necessary teaching skills .
The National Assessment and Examination Centre (NAEC), which organizes the exams refrained from releasing the list of participants.
“We would like to clarify why the NAEC did not publish the statistics on the number of teachers’ subject test results. This is due to the fact that we regularly encounter the wrong approach to the topic,” the NAEC said.
“In some cases, the results of the tests are used as a way of estimating their qualifications, which in the general situations is wrong, and sometimes is even incorrect,” NAEC added.
Minister of Education and Science Alexander Jejelava stated that the current way of examination is not perfect and it needs to be changed.
“In the future we plan to make some changes in this regard. The format of the exams will be changed, because the existing one cannot be used as an indicator,” stated Jejelava.
Some analysts believe that the teachers who fail in the exams must be replaced.
“Those people are the ones who are trying to pass the exam and keep failing it. The permanent failure indicates towards their skills and they need to be replaced as soon as possible,” head of the International Institute for Education Policy, Planning and Management Revaz Apkhazava said.
The Coordinator at Erazmus + Lika Ghlonti said that Georgia’s Education Ministry needs to run strict reforms.
“I understand that just before the upcoming parliament elections it is hard for them to be strict, but we should think of the future generations,” stated Ghlonti.
During one of his pre-election speeches, the Prime Minister stated that teachers must not be bothered and under continued stress due to the exams.
The statement has caused negative assessments amongst many, and was taken as an election step rather than a healthy approach, especially by the opposition.
In total, 22, 799 individuals registered for the exams, of which 5,662 of them did not appear and out of 17, 137 participants, only 3, 464 were able to pass.
