Making money on Sakartvelo kids

Georgian business has got at schools. The dealers' hands accustomed to counting money have made rather clumsy amendments to the law on general education. Now the Georgian schools will have the right to render "paid services" to the children, such as extra lessons in subjects of the national education plan. These lessons can be held only by strangers and solely in a form different from a common lesson. What will the teachers have to devise to earn another lari? And how will the "rich guys" differ from ordinary kids?

A Georgian higher education institution, the entrance exams day. The applicants are crowding at the doors in waiting. Finally, the dean comes out to declare: "Dear applicants! There will be no examination, for all the tickets are sold".

Such situation is quite possible considering the news about the paid services to be introduced in Georgian schools. This opportunity was granted to education institutions by the amendments made to the law on general education.

Contrary to expectations, "paid services" do not at all mean extra A and B grades under a fixed pricelist or an extra plate of soup in the school canteen or an opportunity to pay for playing truant according to the fixed rate.

It does not mean arranging additional "18+" paid services on the model of one of Tbilisi private schools, where a funny story happened. Last October, Tbilisi journalists found out unexpectedly that the facilities of one of private capital schools, where the children's heads were stuffed with knowledge at daytime, were used for totally different purposes in the evening. It wasn't after-school child-care: the rendered services were rather meant for the children's fathers. To make a long story short, there was a strip club there.

The issue of the revolting neighbourhood was raised before Ministry of Education. The point seemed to be quite clear: an educational institution cannot share a building with a night club. It must be occupied by either of them and it must be children, for how can one kick the children out of their school?

However, having made a casual remark that the matter of the club's authority should be taken up with Tbilisi Mayor's office, the ministry voiced a curious idea: it turns out that the school and the strip club have got different entrances and different operating hours. Thus, as long as the first-graders do not run into strip dancers in the hall, they do not bother each other.

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