In the 2022-2023 academic year, 5,183 children will not be able to receive education in general educational institutions of Georgia. As IPN was informed by the Ministry of Education and Science, in response to the request for data on children left out of school, neither the Ministry of Education, nor the Ministry of Health and Internal Affairs of Georgia have information about 4,362 children, while the rest 821 children are unable to study due to health conditions.

More specifically, in the information provided by the Ministry, it is explained that as of August 1, 2022, "most of the 4,362 children are not registered in universal health care; no one has information about them at the registration address; some of them do not have a registration address; or the registration address is in occupied territories. The search for information about these children continues."

"With the active work of the representatives of the relevant structural units/services of the Ministry of Education and Science and the child protection and support bodies of the respective municipalities, 1863 have already registered in the school and have become pupils. 399 of them are in age-appropriate classes following the procedures established by the law "On General Education", and 1464 are in the first grade, of which the temporary reason for being out of school was mainly the delay in enrollment in school.

In 821 cases, integration into general education is not possible. Most of them are placed either in palliative care services due to their serious health conditions, or because of the most severe and multiple issues, family and municipal services representatives find it impossible to participate in general education services, and in some cases, even in other services for people with limited mobility. There is a more or less equal distribution by gender and age.

Regarding the 4,362 persons, we inform you that most of them are not registered in universal health care, no one has information about them at the registration address, or some of them do not have a registration address, or the registration address is the occupied territories. The search for information about the mentioned children is still ongoing," reads the statement.

As for other data, as of August 1, 2022, 1,912 children are not in the country or state-controlled territory.

In addition, according to them, in 1446 cases, the information stored in the information bases of various agencies was corrected. As explained by the Ministry, this was mainly caused by different identification data of foreign children, the fact of death was not registered in about 150 cases.

In addition, according to the Ministry of Education and Science, in order to eliminate the problem, it is planned to conduct another cycle of monitoring from September 2022.

"For the timely identification of children left out of school, on the basis of the "Child's Rights Code", in all municipalities, appropriate structural units/services of municipal bodies for child protection and support have been created, which carry out door-to-door visits and study the legal status of children in detail. At the level of the central government, the systematic implementation of the "State Program for Monitoring Children Left Out of School" is planned, which will make it possible to keep an eye on the current dynamics. The "State Program for Monitoring Children Left Out of School" was approved by the Resolution N573 of September 10, 2020, by the Government of Georgia. On the basis of the exchange of data between 6 and 16 years of age, out-of-school adolescents were identified.

The program was developed by the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia with the involvement of relevant structural units, the State Services Development Agency of Georgia, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia, the Ministry of Health and the Office of the State Inspector, with the support of the Ministry of Justice of Georgia. Until 2020, the country did not have a monitoring system for children left out of school, who have never been enrolled in school, have no educational history, and there is no data on them in the database of the education management information system. Within the framework of the program, as a result of the data exchange with the State Services Development Agency and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia, it was revealed that data about 10,404 children (personal number, name and surname, date of birth) were not recorded in the database of the education management information system. It should be taken into account that a large volume of data was processed during the pandemic period," the information reads.

source: IPN