The Speaker, Archil Talakvadze opened the session with congratulations on Mother Language Day: “Today, we celebrate one of the most important days for Georgia – Mother Language Day. The Georgian alphabet takes its dignified place amongst the world's writing systems with its unique style and sonority. All three writing systems of the Georgian language – Cavalry, Capital and Minuscule are enrolled in the UNESCO List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The Georgian language has been through the centuries, maintaining our culture, integrity, identity and history. Today, we celebrate the devotion of our ancestors, including the intact and unanimous efforts of the Georgian society in 1978 to protect this treasure. This treasure needs particular care and attention. Once again, I would like to congratulate everyone taking care and proudly using the Georgian language on this day. I thank the teachers, delivering this unique treasure to the new generations, especially against the pandemic, when the education process encountered the acute challenges, their merit is to be especially valued”, - he stated.

MPs discussed with the II and III readings and accelerated consideration and adopted the Bill on Higher Education.

According to the First Deputy Education Minister, Ekaterine Dgebuadze, the Bill aims at provision of the children with special education needs residing on the occupied territories with access to higher education as due to the absence of the necessary infrastructure and programs on the occupied territories, they were deprived of the opportunity to obtain general education.

The authors shared the remarks expressed at the Committee hearing.

MPs estimated the Bill as a key document and thanked the Education Ministry for this initiative.

MPs discussed and approved the Draft Organic Law on Georgian Citizenship. According to the First Deputy Chair of the Diaspora and Caucasus Issues Committee, Givi Chichinadze, the draft extends the opportunity to determine Georgian citizenship to December 31, 2022, allows the persons born on Georgian territory to obtain citizenship by the special rule etc.

MPs heard and took note of the activity report by the Budget and Finance Committee, introduced by the Chair, Irakli Kovzanadze.

“The report consists of 80 pages and includes the outcomes of the Commissions and Working Groups at the Committee, law-making activity, the specific activity of the Committee, budgetary activity, oversight function, budget control, the activity of the Standing Audit Group on State Audit Reports and all these directions are provided in our report”, - I. Kovzanadze stated.

The Committee held 28 sittings in 2020, discussed 647 issues, on 318 of which the Committee was leading, heard 29 reports by the accountable bodies and 14 budgetary statement.

“As you know, the Budget Committee, out of 15 Parliamentary Committees, holds 49% of the total activity”, - the reporter noted.

The Chair of the Education and Science Committee, Shalva Papuashvili introduced the activity report for 2020.

The Committee held 23 sittings, discussed 7 Bills as a leading Committee, discussed 6 Bills and 2 international agreements as a Mandatory Committee, 6 sittings were dedicated to the reports by the accountable bodies and held 3 thematic inquiries.

MPs took note of the report.

As the Speaker stated, thus, the agenda is expired and the Parliament resumes with the Committee hearings.