Eka Beridze

“I cannot watch Georgian TV - I do not speak Georgian. Well, 30 families live in this area and 90 percent of them have satellite equipment. They need it to watch Russian TV,” Gevorg Hambartsumyan, an elder from the village of Kartikan, Akhalkalaki region, explains.

It is for this reason - inability to speak Georgian - that most of the households in the Armenian-dominated Javakheti are equipped with satellite dishes and prefer to watch Russian TV. 

The non-Georgian residents of Samtskhe-Javakheti have little, if any, chance of getting a decent job: Georgian is the only working language in both public service and the non-governmental sector. For those who do not understand the language this is a serious problem.

In the Soviet times many local residents received education in the neighbouring Russia. Today the language barrier severely restricts their employment opportunities in Georgia. Rubik Efrikyan from Akhaltsikhe, in his 40s, is resentful because the language problem, let alone the age limitations on employment, gives him no chance to find a job. “A lot of people in Georgia are unemployed, like me, only because they do not speak Georgian. I think that professional education is more important than being able to read and write Georgian,” he argues.

Many of those who do not speak Georgian admit, however, that active civil participation is impossible without fluency in the official language.

Sergey Fidanyan, who claims that he speaks Georgian “quite well,” was lucky to get a job a year ago. In his words, every resident of Georgia, regardless of ethnic background, must speak Georgian, the country’s official language, in order to be a full Georgian citizen. In his opinion, language proficiency is a pretty useful skill, which may help in different circumstances.

In recent years the Ministry of Education has made significant steps to improve the teaching of Georgian in non-Georgian schools. Nevertheless, the top-graders of Armenian school No. 3 in Akhaltsikhe do not have much hope that they will be able to compete successfully with their Georgian counterparts at the coming national matriculation exams.

Narine Poloyan is going to seek admission to a Georgian university. But she is almost certain that she will not succeed. In all likelihood, she will have to travel to Armenia and get higher education there. “I don’t think that the entrance exams will be easy to pass - we have problems with the language,” she says, emphasising that the level of the entry exams is the same for Georgian and non-Georgian applicants without distinction. Narine admits that she, as well as other non-Georgian residents, needs to speak Georgian. But, in her words, because of the low quality of Georgian teaching in non-Georgian schools Georgian applicants will always have a competitive edge over their non-Georgian counterparts in the entry exams.

The language barrier fuels migration. Satenik Simonyan, Narine’s school mate, has opted to seek higher education in Armenia, even though she is well aware that Armenian education will be more expensive for her than Georgian one. “I’m going to get education in Yerevan - I speak Georgian badly and I’ll undoubtedly fail the national entry exams.” Satenik is not going to return because she knows well enough that finding a job in Georgia is nearly “a mission impossible” for her. That is why she has decided to stay in Armenia and get a job there.

The number of admission applications from non-Georgian seekers of university education has dropped by three times in recent years. Only five Armenian school leavers have applied for higher education in Georgia this year.

Nato Kapanadze has been teaching the Georgian language and literature in an Armenian public school for the last several years. She also believes that non-Georgian pupils cannot compete on a par with their Georgian counterparts because of the substandard teaching of Georgian in non-Georgian schools.

Today the Tavtavi (Ear) is the main Georgian language teaching textbook for Armenian schools. The authors of the book and experts are unanimous that the five levels of the textbook provide enough knowledge to pass the national matriculation exams successfully. However, the textbook has not been fully published yet and not all the schools have included it in their curricula.

According to Nato Kapanadze, many pupils would like to enter a Georgian university but they do not speak Georgian. “It’s not their fault that they have been unable to cover all the five levels of the textbook in time. I consider this generation the victim of reforms,”she remarks bitterly.

The Ministry of Education has already presented the textbook for the third level, which should be delivered to non-Georgian schools of Samtskhe-Javakheti soon. But school principals have no idea yet what the target age group of the new textbook is.