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Disagreement in Public School in Village of Sakasheti

May 16, 2008

Saba Tsitsikashvili, Gori

Teachers of the Sakasheti Public School in Gori District were punished for having defended their rights. On March 15 they submitted a letter of complaints to Vardzelashvili, Shida Kartli Regional Governor, and several days later the letter was shared with the person that they had complained about. Eighteen teachers of the school complained about the director who later met them in private and dressed them down over their behavior.

It is interesting what Vardzelashvili thinks about the fact that the letter of complaints about Valentina Olgesashvili, the director of the Public School was finally in the hands of the focus of the teachers’ discontent. In light of what has transpired, this explains why the the Human Rights Center become interested in this dispute between teachers and their director.

On April 4 the Human Rights Center’s Gori Office was informed that educational process had been a dismal failure in the public school of one of the villages near Variani village. We checked the information at every school in the neighborhood and at the administration of the Sakasheti Public School too.

As soon as the administration of the Sakasheti Public School learned that we were interested in the current situation Valentina Olgesashvili made her employees to write notifications claiming that the educational processes was not a failure. In the afternoon the director showed us the notification of teachers and other employees of the school and everybody then came forth and stated that everything was under control at the facility.

As for the information about delayed schooling process in Fkhvenisi Public School, we had received by phone-call over the distributed information. As part of our follow-up investigation, we met several teachers who had been waiting for the reply from the regional governor for a month already.

The teachers of the Sakasheti Public School have not received a reply so far and they do not know what will happen with their director. We tried to get hold of Vardzelashvili’s reply but officials from the regional administration asked us: “Why do you need Lado’s comments?”

Evidently, on March 15 complaint of the teachers from Sakasheti Public School was sent to the Service Department for Self-governmental Issues within the Regional Administration. However, it was not registered at the chancellery of the administration. Tea Tedliashvili, a journalist of the newspaper “Kartlis Khma” confirmed the fact who attended the process when the complaint of teachers from Fkhvenisi Public School was actually registered at the chancellery.

Tedliashvili recalled that when the complaint was delivered at the chancellery officials refused to allow them to register the letter saying they had already sent similar letter from Sakasheti School directly to the Resource Center.

Since Human Rights Center got interested in the problem of Sakasheti Public School, school administration tried to expose those people who could have got in touch with the center. Director immediately suspected Neli Jafiashvili, the head of Public Relations of the School and Natela Omadze, the teacher.

The people, abused by the director, applied to the Human Rights Center and told the situation in details.

The letter of complaints sent to Vardzleashvili was finally imposed on Zurab Chinchilakashvili, Deputy Regional Governor. Chinchilakashvili sent the letter to Malkhaz Miruashvili, the head of the Department for Self-Governmental Issues; the latter sent it to Giorgi Sosiashvili, the head of the Gori District Resource Center. Sosiashvili told the center that the letter was finally sent to the General Inspection of the Ministry of Education. We estimated the itinerary of the letter only after we bothered the recipient of the letter very much.

As for Vardzelashvili’s comments, it is very interesting though people from the regional administration got very surprised why we needed his comments…

Lawyers for the Human Rights Center’s Gori office think that according to the Georgian General Administrative Code, on March 17 Regional Administration had to inform the teachers that their complaint was sent to the Ministry of Education. 

Lawyers state that Valentina Olgesashvili had right to read the letter of complaints on her only after corresponding administrative body, in this instance the Ministry of Education, had learned about the case. Reportedly, by the time the school teacher was able to get a copy of the letter and it was clear that Ministry of Education had not started the investigation of the case. To be simpler, nobody knew that the letter was already at the Ministry time was needed for a decision to be made in the case.

The situation at the Sakasheti Public School is now so tense that if the problem is not resolved soon, the education process of students may be delayed for a long time.

Giorgi Sosiashvili claims that he had not handed the letter of complaints to the director. Officials from the regional administration do not deny the fact that they had given a copy of the complaint to the director in advance. According to the law, the Ministry of Education is the only authorized body allowed to provide the letter to the director, and only after it had started its discussion and intended the parties on both sides of the issue to discuss the matter.

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