Open Letter to the PM from the Director of R. Shahin Friendship School in Batumi

Mr. Prime Minister,

We are forced to draw your attention to the unlawful actions taken against the Shahin School in Batumi, which has been functioning for 23 years and which currently has 340 students.

On February 3, 2017, at a meeting held in the National Center of Educational Quality Enhancement, the decision to terminate authorization to the R. Shahin School was made based on the fact that six non-Georgian students were transferred from the Turkish to the Georgian section. There is no law or regulation in Georgian legislation with regards to changing sections. The transfer of students to the Georgian section was made after and according to the decision of the Authorization Council on September 4, 2015, to close the Turkish section in the school.

Unplanned monitoring was conducted for the third time in the school in recent months.

We would like to express our suspicion that this baseless decision is a part of a deliberate policy to limit and prevent the Shahin School from functioning in Georgia.

We would therefore ask you to take this issue under your personal control and defend the rights of the 340 students of the school and their parents. We ask you not to give the right to anyone to close a school that has served the country for so many years already. We ask you not to let the school’s work be limited- a school in which Georgia’s honorary citizens have been raised.

Respectfully,

Elguja Davitadze