Between 2000 and 2012, Sweden fell in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) by 16 places from the 7th to the 23rd rank, and in the 2015 PISA study, Sweden ranked 28th of 34 countries in mathematics! As the OECD writes: “No other PISA-participating country saw a steeper decline in student performance over the past decade than Sweden.” Who is to blame?

On Sunday, April 23, the Agricultural Policy Research Center (APRC) of the ISET Policy Institute was invited to participate in an information fair, the “US-Georgia Friendship Fair”, dedicated to the celebration of the 25th anniversary of U.S. – Georgian diplomatic relations, organized by the Embassy of the United States to Georgia. ISET's representatives showcased the successful cooperation between the ISET Policy Institute and USAID.

American and Western European visitors to Georgia are fascinated by the fact that middle-aged Georgian taxi drivers often brandish a couple of engineering degrees, while young hotel receptionists and shop assistants frequently come with law, business, and international relations education. Having spent a couple of days in Tbilisi, visitors may come to imagine that Georgia is so abundant in human capital that entry into these fairly undemanding occupations is extremely competitive.

Representatives of ISET and the ISET Policy Institute visited JSC Georgian Greenhouse Corporation (hereinafter, Planta), the largest greenhouse in Georgia, within their remit to introduce second-year MA students to the practical side of their agriculture-related studies at ISET.

The tradition – and, in most cases, the only way – for Georgian entrepreneurs to finance their businesses and ideas is bank lending, so-called debt financing. However, this source of financing is very limited for start-ups and early-stage businesses, due to the high level of risk involved, the unavailability of collateral assets, and high loan interest rates, which are almost unaffordable for companies that do not generate sufficient returns yet.