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ETHNIC MINORITIES /
Analytical Documents
Сritical Analysis of the State Strategy for Civic Equality and Integration
On July 13, 2021, the Georgian Government approved the State Strategy for Civic Equality and Integration. Although the document covers a ten years period, it does not contain substantially new or crucial perspectives in terms of legislative, institutional and political changes that would contribute to a more equal and equitable political and social environment for non-dominant ethnic groups. The document essentially maintains the inertia experienced in previous years and does not consider any new special, positive measures that would increase involvement, participation and access for non-dominant ethnic groups in any of its key strategic elements.
The strategy covers a period of ten years, and covers 5 strategic elements of an integration policy: 1. The use of the state language in support of integration; 2. Access to quality education; 3. Equality in civic and political participation; 4. Social and economic integration; 5. Intercultural dialogue. According to the government, the process of learning the state language by ethnic minorities will become an important axis of its integration policy, which is why it is to be its top priority.
It is important that, with the new strategy, the government plans to strengthen support for ethnic minority education at the pre-school, school and vocational education levels and continues to support the 1+4 program. It is also worth appreciating that the government recognizes the importance of supporting young people and ensuring their participation. However, the means of implementing these strategies, which have been declared a priority by the state, are still presented in a very general form in the document, which does not allow for proper evaluation. Among other things, in the area of the education policy, which is the main priority of the strategy, the document mentions the idea of developing a unified policy in the future and does not specify new approaches beyond outsourcing existing programs in ethnic minority schools, training teachers and creating the necessary infrastructure and teaching resources. Due to such declarative and unspecific content, the results achieved by the document are not predictable. When viewed in the light of many previous years of government work on integration policy, such an approach seems even more problematic.
