When Georgia’s government announced a big education reform in October, the message was pictured as harmless. Officials said it was about quality, fewer duplicate programs, shorter degrees, and better pay for teachers. But once people started reading the fine print, it felt like something else was going on. The reform wasn’t just about how schools and universities work. In reality, it is about who gets to shape what people learn and what kind of country Georgia is going to be.
A Reform with a Past
To see why this hit a nerve, we have to remember where Georgia’s education system came from. After the 2003 Rose Revolution, the new leaders wanted to pull the country closer to Europe and clean out corruption. They made university entrance exams fairer, added a 12th school year, and joined the Bologna Process.
Those moves were strict and top-down, but they worked. It was a kind of pro-European authoritarian democracy, which used heavy control for Western goals. It created order but also some space for schools and students to think for themselves.
When a new ruling party, Georgian Dream, took power in 2012, things calmed down. The big reforms stopped, but the European direction stayed. Education policy became more about management than vision. That lasted about a decade. Then, around 2022, the mood shifted. Protests grew, Brussels became more critical, and the government started treating universities not as partners, but as problems to be managed. The new education reform is part of that shift.
How the Reform Works
Reform came packaged in bureaucratic language. Words like “efficiency,” “optimization,” and “national priorities” are all over it, but underneath, it rewires the system.
The new rule called “One City – One Faculty” means that in any city, only one state university can have a certain program, e.g., one law school, one medical school, and so on. Officials say it cuts waste and raises standards. But it also means someone in the ministry decides which university gets to teach what. If you’re running a smaller or more outspoken university, that’s bad news. Your program can vanish overnight.
The funding model changes too. Until now, students could take their government grant to any school. Now the government will assign money and student spots directly. In theory, this matches education to “national priorities.” In practice, it means universities depend on political favor to stay alive. Those seen as loyal will get funded. Those that aren’t might slowly perish.
There’s also a new rule limiting foreign students at state universities. Officials argue the schools should serve Georgians, not chase foreign tuition. But many universities survive thanks to those students, especially in medicine. Cut that off, and they become even more dependent on the state. It also kills the chance for Georgian students to study alongside people from abroad, which is something that’s been quietly shaping a more open generation.
Then comes the 11-year school plan. High school will lose a year. The government says the 12th grade is “wasted time.” But that extra year was what made Georgian diplomas valid in Europe and the U.S. Without it, students applying abroad will face new barriers. The minister’s solution is that students can just “finish the 12th year abroad,” which feels detached from real life. Most families can’t do that in Georgia. So, the people who’ll lose out are the ones without money or connections.
Finally, there’s the “3+1” university structure: three years for a bachelor’s degree and one for a master’s. Officials call it faster and more efficient. But most European countries use a 3+2 system on top of 12 years of schooling. Georgia’s version adds up to only 15 years total. That’s below the European standard. Employers or universities abroad may simply not accept it. Students will graduate quicker, sure, but maybe into a smaller world.
What’s Really Going On
When you put all these pieces together, a pattern appears. Each reform gives the government a little more say in how education works. It decides what’s taught, who teaches, how long students study, and how universities are funded. Nothing in the law screams “control,” but that’s the direction everything points.
Critics say it’s an attempt to clean out dissenting academics, but it’s more subtle than that. The system makes universities behave. When jobs, budgets, and accreditation all depend on one authority, people start censoring themselves. Professors stop speaking out. Administrators stop experimenting. Everyone learns the safest move is silence in a new reality.
The government says professors will get better pay, up to 10,000 lari a month for full professors. That sounds good, but it’s obvious that there will be fewer of those positions. The best salaries will go to those who don’t rock the boat. So higher pay becomes a way to reward loyalty.
The new rule about moving faculties between cities also matters. Officials call it “deconcentration,” but shifting departments out of Tbilisi, where protests often start, conveniently spreads students out across the regions.
Turning Away from Europe
The other big story here is how the reform quietly cuts Georgia off from Europe’s education network. The Bologna Process made Georgian degrees recognizable abroad and opened doors to programs like Erasmus+. That’s not just about prestige; it’s about students being able to move, work, and study freely.
With 11 years of school and shorter degrees, that compatibility breaks. A Georgian master’s might not count as a full one in Berlin or Paris. Exchanges will get complicated, credits won’t match, and some partnerships could end altogether. Slowly, Georgia’s education system will become isolating again.
Supporters say this will stop the “brain drain,” since students will stay home instead of leaving for Europe. But that’s not solving the problem. It’s closing the door for pro-European, high-quality-education-oriented young Georgians. Instead of making local education better, it makes leaving harder. It’s control disguised as patriotism.
The Pushback
Teachers, students, and researchers didn’t stay quiet. Professors published open letters calling the reform “chaotic” and “politicized.” Students at Ilia State University and elsewhere held meetings, worried their degrees might soon mean less abroad. Parents started petitions to keep the 12-year system.
Even outside the country, people are paying attention. EU officials have already warned Georgia about democratic backsliding, and this reform feeds that concern. Education isn’t listed as one of the official conditions for EU membership, but it connects to everything: youth mobility, civic engagement, and transparency. If Georgian degrees lose recognition, that weakens one of the few real bridges the country still has to Europe.
So far, the government hasn’t budged. Officials say critics are exaggerating and that change is needed to fix a broken system. But that line only deepens the divide between the government and the pro-European part of Georgia’s population. The more they insist it’s just about efficiency, the more it looks like politics.
The Bigger Picture
We have to understand that this isn’t a return to the old Soviet model, and it’s not an open attack on academia either. It’s something quieter. It’s more like control through dependence. Each change looks minor, but together they trap universities in a loop. They will become reliant on state money, stripped of foreign funding, and aligned with a single political center. Once that happens, nobody needs to censor anything. The system censors itself.
The irony is that Georgia once used top-down control to get closer to Europe. Now, control is being used to pull it away. Back then, power was centralized to modernize. Today, it’s centralized to censor, to reduce the noise, the protests, and the opposition voices that come from open campuses.
What’s clear already is that education has become the new front in Georgia’s political struggle. If this reform keeps moving as it is, that freedom, the one thing that made Georgia stand out after the Rose Revolution, might be the first thing to go.
This piece solely expresses the opinion of the author and not necessarily the magazine as a whole. SpeakFreely is committed to facilitating a broad dialogue for liberty, representing a variety of opinions. Support freedom and independent journalism by donating today.
