The government of the country calls the innovations one of the important stages of the big reform of general education. Georgian Education Minister Givi Mikanadze listed five arguments in favor of the uniform: it helps discipline, strengthens the sense of belonging to school, reduces social inequality, reduces daily expenses for parents and shapes the academic environment.
The reform will be carried out in stages.
“If this year’s sixth grade students will be in uniform in the first semester, next year they will be joined by seventh grade students and the year after that by eighth grade students. In this way, within a few years, the culture of school uniforms will be formed and there will be no confrontation,” the minister said, quoted by Newsgeorgia.
According to the plan, only first graders will receive uniforms by September 15. Pupils from 2nd to 6th grades will be added during the first semester.
At the same time, the last batch – 900 thousand pieces of clothing out of 1.8 million – should arrive only on November 30, 2026. That is, some children will start the school year without uniforms and will receive them only in two and a half months.
The Minister of Education explained this by the large volume of purchases and the need for gradual quality control. At the same time, he emphasized that the uniforms will be made by Georgian manufacturers.
After the restoration of Georgia’s independence, uniforms were not introduced in the country’s public schools as mandatory at the national level. Since the 1990s, the system gradually abandoned the Soviet compulsory uniforms, and most schools operated without a uniform state standard of dress. In some private educational institutions, uniforms were introduced according to internal rules.
