70 Pupils Instead 700 in Akhalgori District Schools

The bell rang only for 70 pupils in the public schools of Akhalgori district on September 1. Before their number were 700. The day became sad because of one more unpleasant news – Tskhinvali de-factor regime intends to remove Georgian language from the program of Russian schools in Akhalgori district.

Kokoity’s de-facto government decided to start school-term on September 1 in South Ossetia. Consequently, the schools started the 2010-2011 school-year in Akhalgori district too.

According to Ossetian media sources, 60 schools of South Ossetia started school year on September 1. According to the same source, 5 000 pupils will learn in the schools of South Ossetia this year. The schools in the de-facto republic work with Russian text-books. According to the education department of Tskhinvali, the problem originated because of lack of Ossetian text-books. The parents of the pupils of Georgian schools in Akhalgori district will have to buy text-books in Tbilisi.

Two Georgian schools in Akhalgori were unified because of small number of Georgian pupils. Despite that, their number is very low for one school too.

“There is only one pupil in the first form in the Georgian school. There are 3-4 pupils in the Russian school. The pupils gave a concert at 9:00 am on September 1. The pupils of Georgian school stood on the one side in the yard and the pupils of the Russian school stood on the other side during the concert. The officials of the local administration Baratashvili and several officers from the Russian frontier service were invited to the event. They presented the children with school-bags and school items,” said a resident of Akhalgori district.

Before the war of 2008, there were 400 pupils in the Akhalgori School # 1; and about 100 pupils in the third school. Now there are about 35 pupils in the Georgian school. There are more children in the Russian school because Russian families, who resettled in the district after the war, sent their children to local schools. Those families belong to those Russian soldiers who are deployed on the border of the occupied territory or in the Kanchaveti military base.

“I cannot say that there are much more pupils in the Russian schools; there might be 15-20 more pupils there. There are pupils of only higher forms at the Georgian school. There are no little children in it. The pupils from Tserovani settlement used to go to schools in Akhalgori district because of some advantages. Now they stopped it because the school directors were rebuked for that,” said the residents of Akhalgori district.

In January-February, the pupils from Akhalgori district actively moved to Tserovani settlement. They were mostly the pupils of the 10-11th forms. The reason of their return to the district was some advantages they could have for the entrance exams of high school (they could study without tuition fee even though they did not gain enough points in the entrance exams).

Akhalgori district de-facto administration guessed their intention and prohibited the pupils to move to Akhalgori schools. Despite that, school directors had several similar pupils in their schools in secret. Those pupils went to schools in Tserovani settlement in fact.

The Akhalgori residents are discontent with the initiative of the teacher from Tskhinvali. He wants to remove Georgian language lesson from the school program ay Russian schools at all.

“It was initiative of the teacher of Russian language who was invited from Tskhinvali. We do not like his decision. One parent, who is the director of the youth palace in the district, made a statement in Russian language during the concert on September 1; she said that Georgian language lessons could not be removed from the school program because most part of local people are Georgian and children, even if they are not Georgian, should know the language. She said: everybody should resist the initiative. We all are against it but who cares about it? They have not made the decision yet but people say the local education department will soon make final decision,” said a person who personally attended the concert on September 1.

We got in touch with the director of the Russian school Tsiala Kodalaeva to get comments on the fact. “The concert was very nice on September 1. Representatives of the Russian and Georgian schools celebrated the date together. But please do not ask me anything about the Georgian lessons, I cannot say anything,” said Kodalaeva.

The humanrights.ge was reported from Tskhinvali that despite the discontent of Akhalgori residents, the Georgian language lesson will be soon removed from the Russian school program in Akhalgori district.