1. 11% of schools are private (MES, 2012b) Marketization of education in Georgia: equitable access to
57% of HEIs are private (MES, 2012a)
80% of the sample from Georgia used private
quality education
tutoring as a supplement to formal schooling
(OSI, 2006) Dr. Maia Chankseliani
Two arguments against the Department of Education, University of Oxford
increase of market role in
education: Main trends since 1990s
Promotes inequities
Emergence of private providers at all levels of education;
Does not promote societal good Wider possibilities of school choice;
Introduction of across-the-board per student voucher financing of general and higher education;
Education recipients allowed to pay the cost of private general and higher education with public
vouchers;
Government consolidating the existing public education provider network.
Availability: private schooling Availability: private tutoring
The capital 85.9% 14.1% Interviews with rural disadvantaged families show that they face
two main impediments in the process of deciding on private
Big cities 89.2% 10.8% tutoring: affordability and accessibility (Chankseliani, 2012b).
Towns 91.9% 8.1% The incidence of private tutoring is higher in urban (39%) than in
Villages 98.8% 1.2% rural (17%) areas (World Bank, 2008).
Mountainous villages 99.5% 0.5% The incidence of private tutoring is higher among children from
higher SES quintiles - 50% from the richest quintile and only 17% Demand for private tutoring
Quality: private schooling & tutoring 75% 80% 85% 90% 95% 100% from the poorest quintile go to private tutors (World Bank, 2008).
50% of sample from Georgia maintained that private tutoring is
public school private school Overall, those who come from urban areas and higher SES the only way of acquiring high quality education (OSI, 2006).
Private school graduates score, on average, significantly higher on quintiles have a 4 – 25% higher probability of using private
university selection exams when compared to public secondary school FIGURE 2. PRIVATE SCHOOL ATTENDANCE BY GEOGRAPHIC AREA Gorgodze (2006) found that the following are the main reasons for
tutoring services than those who belong to poorer families and
graduates. The mean score on a foreign language test for private school applicants to decide on hiring a private tutor:
Districts with higher proportions of urban residents house higher reside in rural areas (World Bank, 2008).
graduates is 60.9, whereas the average score for public school graduates tutoring classes help students organise their thoughts better
proportion of private schools (r=.80**).
is 51.7 (Chankseliani, 2012a). there is a wide-spread belief that one cannot pass university
Districts with higher proportions of residents with HE, house higher Affordability of private education entrance tests without private tutoring
proportion of private schools (r=.84**).
When compared to average monthly income, mean rates of HE students feel more at ease to ask questions to a private tutor
Almost one-third of municipalities, all of them largely rural, do not
tuition in Georgia are high. The mean tuition in 2006-2009 was rather than a school teacher
have a single private school (MES, 2012b).
$1187 with the highest rate of $10120. An average Georgian adult students feel they have more time for discussions at private
72% of the pupils enrolled in private schools come from the capital would need to work for twenty months to cover average tuition lessons.
and five biggest cities (MES, 2009), whereas only 42% of the country cost for HE in 2006-2009 (Chankseliani, 2013).
population resides there (GeoStat, 2010). References
Publicly-provided vouchers do not cover the full price of Chankseliani, M. (2013) ‘Financial burden of university attendance in Georgia: Implications for rural students’,
privately-provided general or higher education; neither can they Prospects (forthcoming)
Chankseliani, M. (2012a). Mixed-methods study of higher education access in Georgia: Does location
be spent on private tutoring. matter? (Doctoral thesis). Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK.
Private investment in education Chankseliani, M. (2012b) ‘Spatial Inequities in Higher Education Admissions in Georgia: Likelihood of
Choosing and Gaining Access to Prestigious Higher Education Institutions’, Working Paper, Center for Social
One of the interviewees who happened to be a teacher at a local Sciences
Richer families in Georgia spend significantly more on education school shared her thoughts: “villagers here […] cannot afford Darakhvelidze, K. (2008). The university entrance examinations: the effect of admissions test preparation on
private tutoring in Georgia (master’s thesis). Columbia University, New York.
than poorer families: 43% of total private expenditure on education private tutoring. This is a problem in villages not in urban centres. GeoStat. (2010). National Statistics Office of Georgia data. Tbilisi, Georgia: National Statistics Office of
Georgia.
comes from the top 10% of the richest families, compared with the Villagers are very poor. People hardly make ends meet” (Oni 4, Gorgodze, S. (2006). What hampers the equalizing force of corruption-free university examinations?
FIGURE 1. FOREIGN LANGUAGE SCORE DISTRIBUTION BY SCHOOL 0.2% share coming from the bottom 10% (Shapiro et al., 2007). 2010, cited in Chankseliani, 2012a). Unpublished paper.
IMF. (2003). Georgia: Poverty reduction strategy paper (Country Report No. 03/265). Washington DC:
TYPE International Monetary Fund.
Urban households invested, on average, three times more in MES. (2009). EMIS data on secondary schools and school graduates. Ministry of Education and Science of
Another study has shown that private tutoring investment explains education when compared to the spending of rural households (IMF,
Georgia.
MES. (2012a). Ministry of Education data on HEIs. Retrieved from
significant variation in student performance on higher education 2003). http://mes.gov.ge/content.php?id=1855&lang=geo
MES. (2012b). EMIS data on schools in Georgia. Retrieved from
entrance exams (Darakhvelidze, 2008). http://catalog.edu.ge/index.php?module=statistics
Underfunding from public sources has been reflected in an increase For further information NAEC. (2009). The Unified National Examinations database.
Private school graduates are significantly more likely to gain access to in private expenditure on education to the detriment of equity
OSI. (2006). Education in a hidden marketplace: Monitoring of private tutoring. Overview and country reports.
Please contact maia.chankseliani@education.ox.ac.uk New York: Education Support Program of the Open Society Institute Network of Education Policy Centers.
the most prestigious HEIs than public school graduates, and five out of (Shapiro et al., 2007). Shapiro, M., Nakata, S., Chakhaia, L., & Zhvania, E. (2007). Evaluation of the Ilia Chavchavadze program in
reforming and strengthening Georgia’s schools. Japan: Padeco.
the six most prestigious HEIs are private (Chankseliani, 2012b). World Bank. (2008). Georgia poverty assessment ( No. 4440-GE). Human Development Sector Unit South
Caucasus Country Unit Europe and Central Asia Region.