Georgian language proficiency among ethnic minorities is the most important challenge facing our country, – Vasil Maghlaperidze, General-Director of Georgian First Channel stated at the opening of the online Olympiad for Armenian and Azerbaijani schoolchildren.

“The online olympiad for Azerbaijani and Armenian schools is a much more important project than it might seem at first glance. This is one of the main and most important challenges facing our country. We must act actively and quickly, since a rather important part of our population, including youth, is unable to fully engage in the social life of the country due to the language barrier. The country is losing talents, resources, energy. I think we have nothing to panic about, but we should make very effective steps to solve this problem as soon as possible. This is not an insurmountable problem, – said Vasil Maghlaperidze.

General-Director said that Georgian First Channel started to approach this problem, find ways out, and show it to others. He noted that the authors of the project had done a great job.

“The project aims to show people the essence of the problem, the problem that needs to be solved and I’m sure we will do it. We are working on a number of other important projects as well” – Vasil Maghlaperidze added.

Georgian First Channel launches Georgian language online Olympiad for Armenian and Azerbaijani school students starting from today. The 7th-grade school students of non-Georgian language schools can participate in the project. About 200 participants have already expressed their desire to participate, out of which several applications have been selected. The aim of the project is to popularize the Georgian language in the regions where the representatives of our fellow ethnic minorities live.

The project of Georgian First Channel Our Georgian Language aims at the popularization of the Georgian language. Various activities are planned within the framework of the project. The main part of the project is the Georgian language online Olympiad for non-Georgian language schools in different regions of Georgia. The project will be carried out with the support of the U.S. Embassy in Georgia this year. The 7th-grade school students of non-Georgian language schools can participate in the project This year. A certificate will be given to every participant. Three winners will be awarded prizes. Teachers of Georgian language and literature of winner pupils will be also awarded.

Quizzes will be periodically published on the project’s Facebook page, the winner students of the non-Georgian schools will receive encouraging prizes. The following activity is planned – to write an essay under the title “Our Georgian Language”.

In addition, Georgian language lessons for Armenian and Azerbaijani school students have been broadcast on the Georgian Channel One for several weeks.