Students Remained Without Diplomas

Graduate students of the Zugdidi Branch of the Tbilisi Ivane Javakhishvili State University (TSU); have not received their diplomas yet. Hundreds of students have been waiting for their diplomas for a year. Many of them have faced various problems when they wanted to go on with their studying, or to take internship courses or to get employed. Employers demand diplomas from young people.

Kakha Mikelbaia is one of those who successfully graduated from the Law Faculty at the Zugdidi Branch of the TSU. He visits the university once a week to take a document. Since he graduated from the Unversity, he has been demanded to produce diploma three times and he had to use a certificate instead of the diploma. “I have been in bad need of diploma three times since my graduation. Initially I was taking an internship course at the Expertise-Criminality Department; then I applied to the position of the investigator at the Regional Department and in both cases I was demanded to produce the diploma. Luckily I could produce a certificate instead,” said Mikelbaia. He said board of the university refused him to give a diploma. The reasons were some organizational problems. “They used to tell us they could not give us diplomas because of objective reasons.”

Lika Kobalia produced certificate instead of diploma when she applied to Master Degree for the Philological Faculty: “I had always wanted to go on with my studies and did not look for a job. I immediately started to gather documents to enter the Master Degree. Soon I discovered that diplomas were not delivered in the University. I was lucky because I could apply to the post graduate course with certificate instead of diploma. If they had demanded diploma, I would never have entered it,” said Kobalia.

Hundreds of students are waiting for their diplomas like Kakha and Lika. Theona Khufenia, Interim Rector for the Zugdidi Branch of the TSU said that the diplomas have already been delivered from the Tbilisi State University and they would soon be given out. “At present we are preparing diplomas and the students will be able to receive them in the nearest future,” said Khufenia.

Nana Sajaia, Zugdidi