Georgia’s Russia-Inspired Education Reform Raises Cognitive Security Threats

Georgia’s Russia-Inspired Education Reform Raises Cognitive Security Threats

Executive Summary:

• Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream party is centralizing education by standardizing textbooks, delaying English instruction, and including patriotic and religious content in curricula, aligning Georgia’s education policy more closely with Russia’s model of state-directed ideological education.
• The reforms expand the Georgian Orthodox Church’s influence in public schools through values education programs, religious content, and curricula centered on national identity.
• These educational transitions strengthen state control over national identity formation and cognitive security while mirroring Russia’s use of traditional values as a geopolitical and anti-Western instrument.

On July 3, as part of a school reform, the Georgian Ministry of Education announced that English language instruction in the country’s schools would no longer begin in the first grade. Instead, it is planned to start in the second grade (Interpressnews, July 3). The change is not fundamental, as the overall number of English language instruction hours remains unchanged. It may, however, indicate shifting priorities in education policy and raise broader questions about the role assigned to foreign language learning. A similar trend can be observed in Russia, where starting from the 2026 academic year, the Ministry of Education plans to reduce the number of foreign language classes in schools (RBC, January 22). The measures differ in scope and rationale, but both developments reflect changing approaches toward foreign language education and its place within national education strategies. In Georgia’s case, English education has been associated with the country’s pro-Western orientation. More broadly, changes in school reform agendas raise questions about cognitive security, as education policy plays a key role in shaping societal resilience, critical thinking, and the ability to withstand external influence.

On June 30, Georgian Minister of Education Givi Mikanadze announced that, as part of the overall education reform, the content of textbooks would be completely changed (1tv.ge, June 30). All schools will now use the same textbooks, and the principle of textbook choice will be abolished. The new textbooks will be prepared by the Ministry of Education rather than by scholars. One of the key elements of the reform will be textbook covers featuring “visual elements reflecting national values” (1tv.ge, June 30). According to Mikanadze, the cover of the chemistry textbook will feature the process of winemaking, which will simultaneously symbolize a chemical process and show how Georgia is the birthplace of wine. The cover of the biology textbook will feature five ears of Georgian wheat, which, according to the minister, has occupied a unique place in the world (1tv.ge, June 30).

The form and content of the education reform initiated in Georgia not only repeat the steps Russia has taken in reforming school education. It will also almost coincide with them in terms of timing. On May 27, Russian Minister of Education Sergey Kravtsov announced that a unified set of school textbooks was being prepared in Russia (RBC, May 27). Georgia is essentially following Russia’s path. At the first stage, the Georgian government adopted several laws aimed at minimizing Western influence in the country. At the current stage, they have turned to eliminating liberal content from the education system. The so-called “school constitution”—the national goals for general education—which the Georgian Parliament approved in June 2024, envisages the complete exclusion of liberal values from school education. The government made it no secret that the purpose of this document was to effectively replace the previous document on national goals for education, which, according to the minister, was “saturated with liberal values” (Imedinews.ge, December 2, 2025).

Georgia plans to place greater emphasis on the patriotic education of young people within the school system. Among Georgian education experts, this invites comparisons with the Soviet era—and more broadly, the totalitarian past—where the state actively used the education system as an instrument of ideological influence and the shaping of students’ worldviews. According to Simon Janashia, an education researcher and a member of the opposition party “Freedom Square,” the government is allegedly engaged in a “struggle to defend traditions,” using false pathos as well as religious and nationalist texts (Radio Tavisupleba, July 2).

On June 30, Mikanadze explicitly stated that the goal of the reform is the maximum integration of national values into the educational process. He expressed confidence that “we will achieve the desired result in a few years” (1tv.ge, June 30). The ruling Georgian Dream party intends to strengthen the teaching of national values in the education system, as well as religious elements. According to Mikanadze, textbooks on history and Georgian literature will extensively include quotations from the recently deceased Patriarch Ilia II of the Georgian Orthodox Church (GOC) (1tv.ge, June 30).

Georgian Dream seeks to use the principle “God, Homeland, Man,” formulated by the late Patriarch, as the foundation of a new ideological model. It aims to shape the younger generation and strengthen a conservative value system. This process effectively indicates the beginning of the formation of an anti-liberal ideological agenda in Georgia. On May 26, during the state celebration of Georgia’s Independence Day, the government used the slogan as an inscription on the military uniforms of soldiers participating in the events. Opposition politician Roman Gotsiridze called the use of this quote on military uniforms “propaganda for theocracy” and stated that Georgia is moving along the path of “Iranization” (Facebook/roman.gotsiridze, May 27).

In forming a new anti-liberal agenda, Georgian Dream assigns a special role to the GOC. In June, the Georgian government and the GOC intend to strengthen the “values education program” in schools, which was introduced in 2024 through cooperation between the Georgian Patriarchate and the Ministry of Education. The program is now gradually turning into a mass initiative. At this stage, the program, which essentially involves religious education, has expanded to include 141 schools, where so-called values education clubs have been opened, involving 4,375 pupils (EDU.aris.ge, June 16). There are a total of 2,292 schools in Georgia, and according to the government’s plans, most of them may be covered by this program. An additional 129 representatives of the clergy have been trained, and new clubs are planned to be opened by the beginning of the new academic year in September (EDU.aris.ge, June 16). The program provides religious education only within the framework of the dominant Orthodox tradition. At the same time, the ministry has not yet commented on whether separate educational formats for students of other faiths will be provided as part of the initiative.

The GOC has long sought to restore Orthodox religious education in schools, which had been introduced into the Georgian school system in a largely spontaneous manner following the collapse of the Soviet Union. After the Rose Revolution of 2003 and the adoption of the Law on General Education in 2005 under the previous, more liberal government, these opportunities were significantly curtailed. The law established religious neutrality as one of the fundamental principles governing public schools (Legislative Herald of Georgia, 2005). In practice, this meant that schools were permitted to offer only introductory courses on world religions or the history of religion, rather than instruction in a specific religious denomination.

Under Georgian Dream, the GOC made several attempts to reintroduce religious education into public schools, at times under the guise of teaching religion or through subjects such as “Me and Society.” Moreover, even before Georgian Dream launched its declared campaign against liberalism, the GOC had already been actively promoting revisions to the school curriculum. In 2015, following the Patriarchate’s strong recommendations, terms such as “gender identity,” “liberalism,” and “democratic values” were removed from textbooks used in several school subjects. The Patriarchate argued that these concepts were political in nature and contributed to the political indoctrination of children (Tabula.ge, October 21, 2015). Georgian theologian Beka Mindiashvili also shared on social media in June 2026 that, in 2017, the GOC had already been developing a curriculum for a corresponding subject, and that one of the GOC’s metropolitans, Ioane Gamrekeli, even demanded that the history of humanity be rewritten and aligned with biblical chronology. This initiative was not approved (Facebook/beka.mindiashvili, June 16).

Representatives of Georgian civil society and the country’s non-governmental sector have expressed concerns about violations of the principle of religious neutrality in public schools. In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, a new school subject entitled Homeland Studies was introduced. According to several local observers and civil society organizations, the course exhibited elements of Orthodox religious indoctrination. It extended beyond the scope of a neutral introduction to the study of religion (Tabula.ge, March 13, 2023).

The transformation of Georgia’s education policy is unfolding through domestic curriculum reforms as well as through participation in Russian-led memory initiatives. In July, Georgian schoolchildren took part in the Russian–Belarusian project “Memory Train,” traveling across Belarus and Russia together with students from Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries along a route dedicated to the history of what Russia refers to as the “Great Patriotic War.” The project was designed to cultivate a shared historical memory centered on the Soviet victory in World War II and to strengthen a common identity among participants. During the closing ceremony in Minsk, Russian Federation Council Deputy Chairman Konstantin Kosachev described the Georgian participants as future “ambassadors of goodwill” capable of restoring friendly relations between Georgia and Russia (Facebook/RuISEmbSwissGEO, July 9).

Remarkably, value-oriented and patriotic education practices were strengthened in neighboring Russia following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 2022 decree on the Fundamentals of State Policy for the Preservation and Strengthening of Traditional Russian Spiritual and Moral Values (President of Russia, November 9, 2022). On July 1 of this year, Russia announced the introduction of a new school subject, titled “Spiritual and Moral Culture of Russia” (RIA Novosti, July 1). The stated goal of the new subject is “to cultivate among schoolchildren a worldview based on traditional Russian spiritual and moral values.” Such similarities create the impression that the reforms in Georgia and Russia aimed at strengthening spiritual and moral education, as well as so-called patriotic education, are based on the same set of guidelines—or even written from the same playbook.

In Georgia, the introduction of religious indoctrination into the education system is taking place amid another government initiative—the celebration of the 1,700th anniversary of the declaration of Christianity as the state religion. The official celebrations began on May 26, Georgia’s Independence Day, and will continue until October 14. As part of the festivities, the government is planning large-scale educational and cultural events, culminating in a symposium on the theme “God, Homeland, Man” (Georgian State Agency for Religious Issues, May 20).

The simultaneous introduction of standardized textbooks, centralized curriculum development, and value-based education in both Russia and Georgia reflects increasing state control over education. It enables the government to shape future generations’ perceptions of democracy, the West, Russia (in the case of Georgia), religion, national identity, and external threats. This suggests an effort to turn the concept of defending values into an ideological tool against the West, similar to the approach used by Russia. In Russia, the protection of traditional values has become an instrument of foreign policy, which Georgia could continue to mirror.