The village of Kanti is located in the mountainous area of the Tsalenjikha municipality. One ofthe major challenges that the village is facing, alongside numerous other problems, is the dire condition of its primary school.

The school in Kanti has been allocated to a one-story wooden building that was burnt down as a result of a sudden fire in 2010. The school’s furniture was also destroyed in the fire. Since then, the school’s administration has been renting an adjacent iron structure belonging to a store. Initially, the teachers paid the rent themselves, but it is now covered by the municipal budget. Twenty-one pupils, two of whom are teenagers with disabilities, attend the school, which has The Kanti primary school’s problems were covered only once by the Livepress Internet publication. The local teachers have also informed us that their written pleas to the Tsalenjikha Education Resource Center and the Ministry of Education and Science have been circulating between these two institutions to no avail.

According to the teachers, their official letters were ignored by the President’s and the Prime Minister's administrations. Despite receiving verbal approval from representatives of the Ministry of Education and Science, the school has not yet received the official documents necessary to authorize the construction of a new school building. As a temporary solution, the Tsalenjikha Resource Center offered to move the school’s administration to a building in the neighboring village of Jglala. The teachers and parents, however, did not accept the offer, as 13 of the 21pupils are vulnerable children and their parents would not be able to organize even their timely transportation to the school’s new location.

In addition, it is impossible to continue holding classes during the winter in a building that lacks basic amenities. Although the school receives firewood supplies from the Tsalenjikha municipality, it is virtually impossible to maintain a warm temperature in the classrooms, as the metal doors, partitions and old windows are fit with cardboard instead of glass and cannot sustain heat. Additionally, the classrooms are separated by curtains instead of doors. The construction of public schools and the maintenance of their infrastructure is within the immediate competence of the Ministry of Education and Science. Therefore, Transparency International - Georgia calls on the Ministry to resolve the issue of constructing a new building for the school in Kanti within a reasonable time.