Economics Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, well-known for sharply criticizing the conventional wisdom of development economics, once summed up his views in a rhetorical question: “We have felt the pain, when do we get the gain?”

When I think about the lack of human capital in Georgian agriculture, I am reminded of the 1997 Georgian movie “The Turtle Doves of Paradise”, directed by Goderdzi Chokheli. In a Soviet village, an ex-priest decides to teach basic knowledge to old peasants. He wants them to learn to read, write, and elementary calculations skills.

Like many, I like having more choices but hate making choices. As a result, many of the most important choices in my life, including the choice among alternative partners, have been made for me by … others.

On December 18, 2013, ISET hosted the second event in a series of discussions on the topic of inclusive growth. The topic of the event was Modernization of Vocational Education and Training (VET) and Extension Systems related to agriculture in Georgia.

In the 1930s, the American linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf put forward the hypothesis that people of different mother tongues perceive the world differently. According to linguistic relativity or Whorfianism, both the grammatical structure and the vocabulary of a language influence the way how people think.