The ESFTUG's IX reporting-electoral congress approved the resolution whose text was developed in the process of congress work, based on delegates' opinions, demands and discuss. The resolution envisages major priorities of ESFTUG’s activities in the field of labor, social, economic, legal and professional rights of workers employed in preschool and general education institutions. The delegates who took part in the debate took advantage of the delegate's authority and their members' confidence mandate, openly and thoroughly talked about challenges and needs related to the processes in the education system. They also evaluated 4-year activities of the ESFTUG and its president. Levan Nataridze, chairman of the ESFTUG’s Shuakhevi branch organization addressed the delegates of the IX Congress. He described the activities carried out by ESFTUG as fertile during the reporting period.

"In this period we were able not only to reconstruct our trade union discredited by the previous government, but also to make important steps for the development of our organization and its approach to European trade unions.

You will all agree with me that Ms. Maia Kobakhidze, the president of our organization, has a huge contribution in this case. She was able to create a new trade union with new form and content, she removed the fear and stress among the teachers which was established by previous government, for this we would like to thank her. The restoration of the broken bridge with the government with constructive dialogue and the “sectoral agreement” with the Ministry of Education, which was called "historic agreement" by the European trade union leaders, are important achievements for each of us.”

The rapporteur thanked the ESFTUG’s President for his effective work.

"Mrs. Maya is truly a leader of the European style trade union and the members are very fond of her. All this can be seen in social networks and TV and radio outlets. Maia Kobakhidze managed to come and visit almost every district of Georgia and attend their reporting and election conferences. She met with the members of the trade union, listened to them, got acquainted with their problems. This honor also belongs to mountainous Adjara municipalities. Her arrival in Khulo, Shuakhevi, Keda and Khelvachauri was stimuli and hope for teachers, they have a reliable defender. Let me evaluate the work of the Maia with the holiness and purity of the high mountains of Adjara, not only satisfactory but also successful. "

Rusudan Koplatadze, head of the primary organization of Sabauri Public School # 2 (Khelvachauri Municipality):

"Reporting-election conferences held in were a kind of basis for the solidarity and unity of trade unions. Conferences in high mountainous regions of Khelvachauri, Keda, Shuakhevi and Khulo regions were held with high responsibilities in business environment, which was more interested because of the participation of ESFTUG’s President Maia Kobaidze, other responsible persons of ESFTUG, members of Parliament, regional educational resource centers and local self-governments’ leaderships. On behalf of 9000 members of Adjara organization I thank ESFTUG’s leaders, every responsible person for organizing the current congress and for other activities that they do for our members.

We see progress in the protection of labor, professional and legal rights of employees. Significantly increased the number of primary organizations, as well as the number of members. However, this does not allow us to avoid eye, from existing deficiencies and unused resources in organizations. In order to increase the role of primary organizations, the leaders of the trade unions should be more involved in trade union trainings. Let us resume sharing of experiences... It does not matter how many times I repeat these issues, it will not bring the teacher out of the situation in which it is today.

The teacher appointed on contract after 2015, which has not passed certification exams, can not join the career progression scheme. Teachers do not consider today's form of certification to improve quality of teaching. A pre-prepared model lesson can not raise the qualification of the teacher and the level of knowledge of the student. High mountainous program, which envisages benefits for teachers with many children and is estimated to be 3000 GEL, it is desirable to increase the margin by 6000 GEL. It is unclear why such principal issues are planned, so that nobody asks the teachers. How and in what form, it is better to consider teachers' opinions.

It is necessary to create working groups in the relevant specialists in resource centers to assist school and teachers in the direction of professional development and advancement. Will provide schools with appropriate resources. It will be very useful if we restore teachers' permanent centers by regions. For schools or for pre-school institutions, in mountains or in field, let alone the higher education institutions, where there are many problems, it will bring a successful result. The main thing is not to remain any organization, who can put one bricks in the progress of the system ".

Ioseb Zhghenti, head of the ESFTUG’s Zestaponi branch organization:

"Mrs. Maya, you give all of us some kind of peace and example, we learn a lot from you. In every village, I want to welcome my colleagues at all schools, they know that I am at the congress.

I was a special teacher, I worked in one of the schools and I loved my work very much. Two men were a special teacher throughout Georgia. The school where I work is piloted and we in summer I was told that special teachers will be granted the status of teachers, but they will be deprived of the lesson in the subject in which they are specialists. I had 10 hours before these changes. As a result of the changes I should give up my subject. I like inclusive education. I think you should be ready inward for this. I speak not as a teacher but as a father. The pupils with whom I worked have already finished school. Despite all the trainings I spent, I cared for these children, I was unhappy, but in September, I made a decision and I left the position of special-teacher.

Mrs. Maya, we miss our specialty and I appeal to you to give us the right to work with our specialty, even with a little hourly load. It is not simple to be a special teacher, it is not just a plan to define and write, I want to tell you that special-teacher should also teach the subject, because we are not only teachers, we teach them more things that a subject. I agree with the representative of Adjara, teachers are busy with only schemes and plans and there is no place for the pupil. Bureaucracy should be reduced. Schools need special teachers and more attention is needed. Teachers have much more to do than to teach the subject, we should teach how to live. We are an important part of society and we need to be appreciated. "

Irakli Damenia, delegate from Martvili region, teacher of the village Nogha public school:

"There has been a lot of work done for teacher retraining at the district level, as a result teachers’ status raised and their salaries increased. With the request of the ESFTUG and with the involvement of ESFTUG’s president Maia Kobakhidze, the individual requirements of the scheme were simplified, for which we are grateful to her. According to her contribution, Ms. Maia was a non-alternate candidate and deserved great trust from the delegates. It is true that teachers' salaries are not enough, but it is especially difficult for the technical person to deal with it. Their salaries are not the equal to the minimum wage and low than pension. In our opinion, the demand for gradual increase of salaries of the administration and tech staff should stand in the same way. "

Ekaterine Chelidze, head of the ESFTUG’s Tkibuli branch organization:

"Today I was coming and I was thinking about speech. I was excited, I thought about it and I said – why should I be excited, it is my family. Here we are telling, what we do, how we help people. This organization is our unity, our common case. Without exaggeration we bring the pain of the employees and share together, we make plans to solve the problems. The idea of trade union is to share somebody else's problems, search out ways and care for solutions. This is an organization of employee rights protection, organization of solving problems of employed people, and within our competences we care for our members every day.

I have been a member of the Trade Union for years, but I have not had such close contact with the organization's daily activities. From May this year I started to restore Tkibuli regional organization and we already have 200 members. It is important for us to cooperate with local government bodies, directors and kindergartens’ union, but it is more important to work with our potential members to timely bring the results of trade union activities. It is important to be constantly in contact with them. If we are building a democratic country, if we should raise generations with democratic values, then each of us should take care of strengthening democratic institutions.

The academic sphere is one of the biggest body and each of the employee faces new challenges. Therefore, we, the trade union, believe that we should be supporting the employees in order to create a united, transparent and strong organization. "

Vivina Dzidziguri, the head of ESFTUG’s Martvili branch organization:

"For the third year several teachers of Martvili region are working in schools and are not involved in the scheme. The acting teachers have some artificial barriers, in the process of assigning the status, and they are requesting that the organization strengthens its activities in this area.

Nazibrola Mikeladze, teacher of Khulo region, village Skhalta public school:

"Mrs. Maya we are happy, that you are our leader. Many positive shifts were made for the benefit of teachers. As a mountain teacher, I want to ask you one thing about class-sets. I mostly worry about the fact that the class does not open for 10 students, when 10 students are in parallel classes. Please help us. and reduce the number of pupils in the classroom, be 6-7 pupils, and open up to 10 pupils. In the class-sets the number of pupils should be reduced to 6-7 students, and for 10 students should be opened classes.

Under the modern teaching environment, when it is a student-oriented environment, it is difficult for teachers to work with 10 pupils in the class-sets, whereas a student with special needs is among other students. Another problem is the lack of Internet network in the mountains. Many schools do not have access to Internet or their access is defective. The third problem of mountain schools -absolute majority suffers from lack of chemistry and physics classrooms, and it is a great problem for teachers to teach technical subjects. Could you help us to bring these problems to the Ministry of Education ".

Leila Gorgadze, head of the ESFTUG’s Rustavi city organization:

"The preschool level requires more attention, the number of children is beyond the limit and the state thinks about the reduction of resources. The groups are overloaded, 2 people work with 40-45 children, which threatens primarily children. In these conditions, the government is demanding to carry out educational processes in a perfect and quality manner, to get out of the results, which is not available for teachers. In kindergarten groups are children with special needs and these children do not come to school alone. We do not have specialists, all can not be a special teacher and trainings are not enough to solve this problem. You will agree that the state should take care complexity for establishment of professionals.

Previously there was a teacher and a nanny. The nanny had a duty to care for the child. Now we called it the assistant of the caretaker, involved it in childcare processes and it can not understand what to do, to care or to engage in the educational process. The nanny has to clean the bathroom and the kitchen, bring the food, remove the table, change the clothes to child and all this with very low salary. Thank you Mrs. Maia, that you put this issue directly into your report. It is not possible to determine a salary by the decision of someone. Whether the municipality has an opportunity, for the employees of educational institutions, the state should also give up money in the form of donation.

A teacher of kindergarten is a teacher, and their work should be understood in the sense that the school teachers’ work.

Finally, unless we have a close relationship between these three mainstream circles –pre-school, school and high school, we can not get a valuable citizen, who will preserve the country's prestige and future ".

Tamar Gigauri, ESFTUG’s Akhalgori branch organization:

"Last night I crossed the border of the occupied territories. Today I am here with refugee teachers. They have a lot of problems. These are the people who can not go to their homes, they miss their houses. In fact, those who work on the occupied territories live in difficult conditions. Every teacher is a hero who performs his job but we are working in such conditions when we are banned from speaking in native language. I teach Georgian in school, which exists more than a century. I have been a teacher for 50 years and for 3 decades the leader of the regional organization. The Akhalgori organization is actually destroyed. I want to ask you Mrs. Maya, Mr. Irakli and I appeal to donor organizations, let everyone to be informed about our pain. There are 7 schools remaining in the occupied territory, one of which is Russian and 6 Georgian schools, but only to the 5th grade. Maybe we can introduce 2-3 manuals in order to teach children Georgian. "

Tsira Gulua, head of ESFTUG’s Zugdidi branch organization:

"I congratulate the pedagogic corps on this day! I will give you a specific example - Some of the teachers involved in the scheme have enough creditors and still do not have an answer about the status. On October 10 testimony on some of the teachers came, some will be announced in November, accordingly, teachers suffer, the answer is late and they do not get a status supplement. How fair it is? We believe that solving of this problem is our organization’s issue. "

Tamar Barisashvili, head of the ESFTUG’s Didube-Chugureti branch organization, focused on the situation of the higher education institutions:

"Our organization unites pre-school and secondary and higher education institutions. Although higher education institutions are still poorly represented in our body, but such reforms are in progress and the results are that many higher education institutions have serious problems. It is necessary for us to start more intensive dialogue with the Ministry about the challenges of higher education institutions "- Tamar Barisashvili said.

ESFTUG’s delegates, on behalf of the members, developed the text of the resolution of the ESFTUG’s IX reporting-electoral congress and approved it by open ballot.