Parliament has moved into the early stages of reviewing amendments to the Law on Higher Education, a process now underway with accelerated status. The draft itself has not yet been published, but Deputy Minister of Education Zviad Gabisonia has issued clarifications following public confusion over remarks he made during a December 8 committee session.
As Gabisonia stated, his earlier comments were misinterpreted because only his response was reported without the accompanying question. He stressed that applicants’ ability to choose from multiple universities and faculties will remain intact. The ‘one city – one university’ principle, he said, is not meant to limit student choice, but to reorganize existing academic structures within cities.
The proposed model would merge duplicate faculties across different state universities within the same location. In Tbilisi, for instance, law programs currently operate separately at Tbilisi State University, Ilia State University and the Georgian Technical University. The reform envisions consolidating such overlapping programs into a single faculty per city, while still allowing applicants to list both state and private institutions on their application forms.
As the legislative process proceeds, the Ministry of Education is expected to provide additional details on how the new structure will function in practice.
