Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 27th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview WG6: Evidence-Based Public Policy Making Author(s) Natia Jokhadze Caucasus University Tbilisi Georgia Title Public Policy on Accessibility of Higher Education - Policy Declarations and Reality in Georgia File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Natia Jokhadze Abstract Accessibility and quality of education, as priorities of the system are declared in all relevant state policy and technical documents. Despite this fact, there is an evidence that higher education system is not equally accessible. At the same time none of the state documents define the concept and criteria of accessibility and quality for different levels of education. The accessibility issue of the general education, due to its mandatory character and ensured financing from the state, is regulated better than for other levels of education. Accordingly, the focus of my research was on higher education and the goal of the research was to study how and if policy declarations and documents are translated into the reality in terms of accessibility of higher education. For this is was important to elaborate accessibility criteria for higher education, based on that criteria to study conditions of equal accessibility and compare the results with the state policy documents, declarations and programmes to find out the linkages and gaps in the chain of policy formulation and policy implementation. The research develops policy recommendations to increase effectiveness of higher education system to meet the education needs of different groups, including vulnerable ones. Method of content-analyses has been used along with the interviews and small-scale poll. The analyses of the accessibility of higher education has been based on the following criteria also elaborated within this study: geographical accessibility, financial accessibility, accessibility of physical environment and infrastructure, accessibility on distance and/or electronic education, accessibility of educational resources, linguistic accessibility, accessibility on programs/specializations, accessibility of system. Study revealed the attitude of the State towards accessibility of higher education – the state has no clear vision, strategy and concrete plan to meet challenges of higher education accessibility; relevant state documents are inconsistent, uncoordinated and fragmented. The study also revealed that higher education is not accessible for many not because their individual abilities, but due to the created and/or unsolved problems of the system. The study revealed the correlation between accessibility criteria and the evidence that solving the challenge of one can influence the raising of accessibility in another component and vice versa. According to the study, state declarations and programmes mostly do not support to the equal accessibility of higher education; accessibility of higher education remains among important challenges for the education system of Georgia and concrete and effective reforms are needed in this sector.
