GTU professor: If GTU and TSU are not Harvard and Oxford, we are developing in line with how the country itself develops - On January 16, at our anniversary, the government praised and glorified us - and this is how it ended - This is our mother university; when a mother grows old, do you throw her away and bring in a new one?
A protest was held at the Georgian Technical University (GTU).
GTU professors and students are protesting the government’s decision to merge the Georgian Technical University with Tbilisi State University (TSU).
They brought protest banners reading: “We will not give up GTU,” “GTU’s history will not be erased,” and “Do not kill technical education.”
As Maia Benia, a professor at the Technical University, stated, the decision to merge the two universities was made without consultation with the university itself, which she says violates their legitimacy and legal rights.
“The government’s decision was completely unexpected, and we feel a deep sense of injustice. Our legitimacy and legal rights have been violated, because the university is an autonomous body. There were no proposals and no discussions whatsoever. On January 16, we celebrated the university’s anniversary. The minister and the government attended the event, praised and glorified us—and in the end, everything concluded like this. I don’t know what kind of hypocrisy this is. I have the impression that even those people did not know this was being prepared when they came here.
Where was such a unilateral decision made, and why is the merger of TSU and GTU considered a panacea? Perhaps they could explain this to us—the ignorant ones who apparently know nothing and with whom, supposedly, discussion is meaningless. If ‘GEP’ and TSU are not Harvard and Oxford, we are developing in step with the country itself.
This is our mother university. And if your mother grows old, becomes ill, and needs help, do you throw her away and bring in a new one? We should treat that mother, medicate her, give her blood transfusions. Instead, should we just get up and merge with someone else? If you have a problem in your family, do you merge with another family—or what do you do?
And what improvement are they even talking about? What can TSU improve for us? They occupy a completely different niche—humanities—while we are technological,” Maia Benia said.
