The politics of language and education in Georgia (compared with the Baltic States and Ukraine)

Abstract

In the process of ensuring successful and full integration, one of the main obstacles is the lack of knowledge of the state language by ethnic minorities. Despite the fact that Georgia has achieved some success in building a democratic state, democratic institutions are still weak in the country. Having weak democratic institutions makes it very difficult to transform diverse religious and ethnic groups into one civil unit. A lack of trust towards political institutions on the one hand, and the weakness of these institutions on the other, leads to the mutual alienation and isolation of different segments of society. The Georgian government, unlike the Baltic States and Ukraine, by way of teaching Georgian to its minorities, set increasing their civic integration and activity in civic spaces as a goal. How successful the steps taken in this regard were is another question.