Georgia: history teachers study problem of tolerance in education

In the capital of Georgia, teachers of history considered the ways of bringing up tolerance in pupils in the multinational and multi-confessional society. The seminar was held within the project "Building up tolerance through historical education". Over 50 persons from different regions, representing various ethnic and religious communities of Georgia, were present.

"Studying history is often a delicate issue in multinational countries," said Elena Medzmariashvili, one of the project coordinators and Professor at the Tbilisi State University. "National minorities of Georgia were insufficiently presented in history textbooks."

"Our project was launched in 2008, which was declared the Year of Tolerance," said Nana Tsikhistavi, a lecturer at the same University and another project coordinator. "Therefore, the tolerance issue was very topical. Earlier, the history of Georgia covered only the history of Georgians and told nothing about the role of ethnic minority. We decided to prepare new materials to picture the world differently, so that people know more about each other's culture, traditions and everyday life".

The seminar held on January 22-24, 2010, was aimed towards further development of additional training and methodical materials for teaching history at schools of Georgia.