The school year in Georgia finally began on September 18. Not only did the current young, revolutionary authorities have doubts about September 1 as the first day of school, but also the former authorities. A couple of years ago, things go so heated up during the months of August-September that former Georgian Minister of Education decided to move the first day of school to another day and then president Edward Shevardnadze approved. With that, the minister did two things at once-first, there was no longer a meaning for teachers to complain to the school administration for paying salaries late, and secondly, not all schools were ready to accept children in a school, which hadn’t been fully renovated. So, the minister didn’t have a lot to worry about.
The new authorities also decided to change the first day of school. Their first year was also heated-up and Mikhail Sahakashvili took the advantage and made a decision. A year later, Ajaria was the place for vacationers to “hike” and the president once again ordered to postpone the first day of school. This time the reason was prosaic-there are many vacationers and the Ajar children can’t go to school every day, so in order to not differentiate, the decision was made to start school on October 1. It was then that Minister of Education Kakha Lomaya announced that perhaps the day of science will be declared as October 1. Some people simply lauged at the decision, saying that the authorities haven’t taken into consideration the fact that the vacationers are mainly from Armenia, where school has started on September 1. So, one way or another, vacationers will leave before September 1 and that’s exactly what happened. There were few vacationers and it turned out that they changed the first day of school for no reason. They forgot about that and they probably thought about changing the day to the next to last Monday of September this year and the next year. On that day, the authorities gave a number of presents. First-grade students got free backpacks for their accessories, some village schools got buses to transport the children to and from school, and some schools got uniforms. The President of Georgia visited the #1 school and the visit was televised on all Georgian television networks. It caused a lot of rumor; the president made his official speech from the podium.
The start of the school year also had its “flaws”. Some schools hadn’t ended reconstruction, so classes will begin later. The opposition showed its rivalry towards the authorities on that day too. The opposition claimed that the authorities are taking advantage of the first day of school as a PR act before the upcoming local government elections on October 5. However, they aren’t really doing the right thing because the results of the elections are foreseen. Despite everything, the Georgian opposition can’t be compared to the popularity of the “National Movement” party. The authorities are not to blame for the fact that the opposition wasn’t able to unite as one and take part in the elections together, which could have been intriguing. Since some parties, like “New Right-Wing”, understood very well that there is no outlook for the elections, declared a boycott, while labor party members are talking about fraud and trying to attract the attention of the international community when the elections haven’t even begun. The Republicans sometimes manage to complain in court about the decisions made by the Central Electoral Commission from time to time, claiming that the commission makes decisions in the preliminary stage and send an absurd appeal against the current regime.
So, even if the Georgian authorities are using the first day of school as PR, it’s not for the purpose of reaching success during the upcoming local government elections on October 5, but rather purposes with an outlook-children will feel that the authorities care about them, which will be very important when they get older and get the right to vote.