2016-09-07
Multilingual Education – Challenges and Perspectives
On September 7, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University (TSU) hosted a conference “Multilingual Education – Challenges and Perspectives” that was a closing event of the TEMPUS Joint Project „DIMTEGU – Development and Introduction of Multilingual Teacher Education Programs at Universities of Georgia and Ukraine“. Acting Rector of TSU, Professor Darejan Tvaltvadze, Deputy Minister of Education and Science Giorgi Sharvashidze, representatives of Georgian and Ukrainian universities, TEMPUS project, and professors attended the event.
Acting Rector of TSU, Darejan Tvaltvadze said that “the project envisages creation of multilingual teacher training programs and their introduction to the Georgian and Ukrainian universities. These programs involve BA, MA and one-year teacher training programs and envisage preparation of syllabus, curricula, preparation of educational resources, translation of very important foreign textbooks in Georgian and Ukrainian, purchase and installation of relevant equipment in those universities, which were the members of the consortium.”
“The partnership with two leading Ukrainian universities proved very interesting. This is a multilateral project envisaging the development of BA and MA programs, support of multilingual teacher training. A very intensive work was conducted during three years and today we are already discussing the results. Many programs have already undergone the process of accreditation and all these will help us give a chance to our teachers to get education and undergo training in this specific field,” Deputy Minister of Education and Science, Giorgi Sharvashidze said.
TSU Associate Professor Kakha Gabunia said: “Education system still faces the problem of minority integration. The key idea of this project was just to promote the process of integration. It was not only lingual integration into Georgian educational space, but also international integration. Besides those programs, which were created within the framework of this project, Internet resources were also created, which are available to any students. In addition, several very important books about bilingual education and teaching the second language were translated; an electronic journal for multilingual education was created.”
Georgia was represented in the consortium by Tbilisi State University, Ilia State University and Samtskhe-Javakheti University; Ukraine was represented by Lviv University and Dnipropetrovsk National University, as well as one non-governmental organization working on the issues of civil integration of ethnic minorities.
Acting Rector of TSU, Darejan Tvaltvadze said that “the project envisages creation of multilingual teacher training programs and their introduction to the Georgian and Ukrainian universities. These programs involve BA, MA and one-year teacher training programs and envisage preparation of syllabus, curricula, preparation of educational resources, translation of very important foreign textbooks in Georgian and Ukrainian, purchase and installation of relevant equipment in those universities, which were the members of the consortium.”
“The partnership with two leading Ukrainian universities proved very interesting. This is a multilateral project envisaging the development of BA and MA programs, support of multilingual teacher training. A very intensive work was conducted during three years and today we are already discussing the results. Many programs have already undergone the process of accreditation and all these will help us give a chance to our teachers to get education and undergo training in this specific field,” Deputy Minister of Education and Science, Giorgi Sharvashidze said.
TSU Associate Professor Kakha Gabunia said: “Education system still faces the problem of minority integration. The key idea of this project was just to promote the process of integration. It was not only lingual integration into Georgian educational space, but also international integration. Besides those programs, which were created within the framework of this project, Internet resources were also created, which are available to any students. In addition, several very important books about bilingual education and teaching the second language were translated; an electronic journal for multilingual education was created.”
Georgia was represented in the consortium by Tbilisi State University, Ilia State University and Samtskhe-Javakheti University; Ukraine was represented by Lviv University and Dnipropetrovsk National University, as well as one non-governmental organization working on the issues of civil integration of ethnic minorities.
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