Early Child Development and Education in Georgia

Highlights

The Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey is a study developed and supported by UNICEF with the purpose of assisting governments throughout the world in fulfilling their commitments to design and implement policies that will help children develop to their full potential. These include commitments to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and to the Sustainable Development Goals. The MICS was introduced two decades ago. Since then, more than 300 Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys have been carried out in more than 100 countries, generating data on key indicators of the well-being of children and women, and helping shape policies for the improvement of their lives.

Georgia participated in three MICS cycles. The first cycle was implemented in 1999, the second in 2005, and the third cycle was implemented in 2018. The survey is the only source for nationally generalizable data on the development of young children in Georgia. The MICS data allows state and non-state actors in the country to track the country’s early childhood development (ECD) progress over time, to identify key factors that can explain differences in ECD, and to use the findings to design targeted policies and interventions.

The objective of the secondary analysis of the MICS data for Georgia is to inform ECD policies and interventions. To meet the objective, using the MICS 2005 and 2018 data, and based on existing theoretical models, the study examines the relationship between a child’s development outcomes and her environment in order to identify the factors that could explain differences in child development outcomes and to help recognize the characteristics of children at risk.

89 per cent of children in Georgia between 3 and 4 years of age are developmentally on track. Although almost all Georgian children reach targets in physical and learning development dimensions, only 25 per cent of them reach literacy and numeracy development targets, while 89 per cent reach social and emotional development targets. On average, the ECD growth rate is higher among girls compared to boys.