ANNUAL REPORT OF THE PUBLIC DEFENDER OF GEORGIA 2013 Recommendations: To the Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Protection QQ To screen the children under State care on mental health; to provide the beneficiaries with adequate psychological/psychiatric assistance through psycho-social programmes; QQ In order to timely identify children’s psychological/psychiatric problems, to ensure that all staff involved in the upbringing of children receive continuous training; QQ To develop and implement operational mechanisms to overcome violence against children. THE RIGHT OF THE CHILDREN AT SMALL FAMILY-TYPE CHILDREN’S HOMES QQ TO EDUCATION The right of the child to education is affirmed by both the international law and the domestic legislation. Under Article 28 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the child has the right to education and the State shall facilitate the implementation of this right on the basis of an equal opportunity. The Georgian Law on General Education determines the State policy and goals in the area of general education. Among others, the Law lays down the principles of openness and equal access to general education, inclusive learning, etc. These obligations are especially important when it comes to children under the State care. The monitoring of small family-type children’s homes elucidated the trend that a majority of beneficiaries who are school pupils need additional preparation, especially in technical subjects and foreign languages. Some of the service providers are managing to satisfy these needs by offering additional classes through volunteering teachers. However, similar opportunities should be made available to all of the beneficiaries at other children’s homes as well, wherever needed. The Association “SOS Children’s Villages Georgia” handles this issue well enough. It should be noted that small family-type children’s homes are assisted by various organizations in terms of educational needs but despite this none of these homes are meeting all of the beneficiaries’ requirements. Whether or not the beneficiaries’ education needs are satisfied should not depend only upon individual organizations’ charity and the State should develop a systemic approach to the matter. The beneficiaries are usually focused on acquiring some vocational knowledge. They want to be more or less prepared for independent life when they attain their majority. On the one hand, we certainly welcome their eagerness, but, on the other hand, focusing only on employment, solely based on earning some own money, may result in disregarding the child’s best interests and diminished motivation to continue to cognize the world. It should not be an end itself for the service providers and the beneficiaries to give/receive a mandatory and a vocational education, which is a commonly accepted trend at a majority of small family-type children’s homes. In the context of the right to education, another important obligation of the service providers is to connect beneficiaries having special learning needs with appropriate educational institutions or professionals. The monitoring showed that children’s homes’ personnel usually unaware of inclusive learning methods. They do not know how to respond to the requirements of children with special needs. In addition to identifying beneficiaries who need individual learning plans, it is important to actually implement these plans. To this end, the children’s homes must cooperate with the relevant educational institutions and then oversee this process. The school also has its role to play. During the monitoring we noticed that schools were neglecting their duties in this regard. Another duty of the service providers have is systematically keep an eye on the beneficiaries’ attendance at the lessons at educational institutions. For example, there is a high level of truancy among the beneficiaries of the Gori and the Khashuri children’s homes. It is also an obligation of the service providers to detect the beneficiaries’ problems at school or college. This concerns both educational needs and the beneficiaries’ social integration into the educational institution’s community. Some educators are prepared to go ahead with this task, some are hesitant. As we found out, in some cases the educators did not know whether their beneficiaries had any problems their teachers or fellow students. NPM Report 68