Given Georgia’s dysfunctional educational sector, it is impressive how many Georgians excel intellectually. For example, ISET regularly sends some of its graduates to the best Ph.D. programs in the world, proving that many Georgians succeed in realizing their intellectual potentials despite unfavorable conditions. At the same time, we notice that a considerable share of students who get enrolled at ISET are not well-endowed with essential knowledge and competencies, lacking, for example, presentation skills, writing proficiency, and resourcefulness in discussion and argumentation.

In the old Soviet movie, “Once Upon a Time Twenty Years Later,” a mother of ten who bought a lot of clothing and food in a local shop was suspected of being a speculator by the shop administrator, who immediately called police as the woman left the shop. The woman survived arrest after it was discovered that she bought so many goods exclusively for her big family, and not for resale or so-called speculation.

Nobel-winning economist James Heckman proclaimed that “the data speak for itself” after he carried out an experiment known as the 'Perry pre-School Project' and discovered that investing in high-quality preschool education brings returns of around 14 percent – a rate of return that is much higher than standard returns on stock market equity (7.2 percent).

Tbilisi residents have already experienced a fair number of cycles in street vending regulations where local authorities tolerate, then regulate, and then evict street vendors. These cycles correspond with economic trends and election cycles starting in 2006 when street vending was declared illegal by the Tbilisi Government and the first attempts were made to enforce the ban.

ISET’s Khachapuri Index kept declining in April, which is in line with seasonal trends. The average cost of cooking one standard Imeretian khachapuri currently stands at 3.32 GEL, which is 2.5% lower month-on-month (compared to March 2017), and 4.9% above year-on-year (compared to April 2016).