Following a lottery, 704 schools in Georgia have been left without candidates for school director Sixty-two of these schools are in the Akhalkalaki region.

Currently, 61 schools in the region do not have directors, and are being run by acting directors.
On July 7, directors were to be appointed in five schools in Akhalkalaki—the D. Demirchyan Armenian school, the V. Mayakovski Russian School, and the Chunchkha, Azvana and Kotelia Georgian Schools. Only one of the candidates was appointed—Emzar Baditze from Chunchkha was made director of the village's school.

In January, 99 candidates were selected to compete in a lottery for 69 school directorships, but only nine were able to pass the initial qualification round. During this round, only one Armenian and eight Georgians satisfied the Georgian language requirement. Subsequently, two of the Georgians failed the oral exam and so only seven candidates remained. As part of the process, 20% of those who scored highest in the qualification test were allowed to choose the school where they wished to serve as director, provided the appointment is confirmed by the school's board of trustees.

At Akhalkalaki's D. Demirchyan School, candidate Davit Chedginitze from the village of Azpintza village received one vote in favor and five against. At the V. Mayakovski School, Soso Tetvadze (the current acting director of the school and former director of Akhalkalaki's Georgian School) received six votes in favor, and Eka Tateshvili, who teaches Georgian in Akhalkalaki's Armenian School received no votes. In the village of Kotelia village, candidates for the position of director at the local school Nineli Otashvili and Otari Bavrishvili (one local and the other from the village of Baralet also received insufficient votes. In the village of Azmana, candidate Malkhas Malkhasyan from the village of Hokam received only one vote in favor, with four votes against him.

The day before elections the candidates for school director presented their “post- election programs”.
According to teachers at the Demirchyan School, Davit Chedginitze wasn't a good fit for their school, because he doesn't know Armenian and isn't fluent in Russian, and lack of knowledge of Armenian alone presents serious difficulties. The candidate promised to learn Armenian within two months, but the school staff treated this with skepticism. “If he doesn't know Armenian or even Russian, how he will communicate with teachers and students? “ asked chairman of the Board of Trustees Anahit Manasyan.

Natella Grigoryan, the former director of the school, who is now serving as acting director, says that the position of director is not as easy as the candidate thinks. “ Without knowing about our budget, he makes a lot of promises, to organize excursions for students and teachers, to provide students free higher education. To promise is one thing, to have the ability to deliver on these promises is another,” Grigoryan explained.

Only the school's Georgian teacher, Lisa Osidze, voted for the Georgian candidate and his program. When we asked how a Georgian director can be justified in an Armenian school, she replied, “ I don't think it matters what nationality he is, so long as he is a good leader.” The teacher explained that the director would have the status of a manager, dealing with financial issues, communicating with the ministry and region's education resource center. The remaining responsibilities, connected with school, teaching staff and students, will be handled by his assistant, the school administrator.

“We are used to talking with our director, discussing problems with him. How are we going to communicate with a Georgian director, if he doesn't know Armenian at all?“ wondered Anahit Nahatakyna, a student at the Demirchyan School and a member of the Board of Trustees.
According to the new rules, the school director is chosen by the Board of Trustees, which is composed of teachers, parents and students, with the number of members determined by the number of students at the school.

If the Board doesn't elect any of the candidates, then in the next phase, new candidates from the same region will be selected via a lottery. A candidate who failed to get elected during the first vote has the right to participate in the second vote, but if not elected, loses the right to put forward his or her candidacy again.

If the school's Board of Trustees fails to elect a director the second time, then the director is appointed by the Ministry of Education. According to Nartsis Karapetyan, head of the Akahalkalaki Region's Educational Resource Centre, in such a case there is a great probability that the director will be from the school's staff, or at least from the region.

The second phase of testing is planned for October. Another chance is given to those candidates, especially Armenians, who failed the first test – they have until October to learn Georgian. And only then will the schools' future be certain. According to Nartsis Karapetyan, the problem of appointing Georgians to Armenian schools is not as great as rumors circulating within the population would have it. “ These two cases do not mean anything; I don't see a big problem here, because in the end, everything is in the hands of the Board of Trustees. They decide who will be the director of their school.”