Georgian authorities will allow a second round of enrollment for school graduates who passed the minimum thresholds in the Unified National Examinations — the common test system through which Georgian school graduates compete for university admission — but were unable to secure places at any university.
The one-time initiative from Georgian Dream Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze comes after university admission data published last week sparked controversy and concerns over the effects of Georgian Dream’s controversial higher education reforms passed over the past year.
Under Georgia’s centralised university admission system, school graduates apply to higher education programs through the Unified National Examinations. Applicants take the required exams and rank the programs they wish to study in order of priority, with a further option to change their preferences after receiving their exam results. Applicants are then allocated places based on their exam scores and the order in which they have ranked the programs.
Passing the minimum threshold in every subject still does not guarantee admission, however. Some students and their families have expressed concern about being left outside the universities in the latest admission cycle despite passing every exam, fueling calls for a second round of enrollment. Authorities later said the number of such students amounted to 1,795.
“Given that we have begun the national reform of higher education, and the current year represents, to a certain extent, a transitional period, only this year will we make an exception, and on the initiative of the Prime Minister of Georgia, Irakli Kobakhidze, we are giving 1,795 applicants who passed the minimum competence threshold set for the Unified National Examinations the opportunity for so-called secondary enrollment,” Education Minister Givi Mikanadze announced during a briefing on August 30.
He said registration for remaining vacant places at state and private higher and vocational education institutions would be announced in the coming days. Applicants who passed the minimum threshold will then be able to register for the available programs.
According to him, the decision stems from the fact that “the initiatives implemented in the first year of the large-scale reform represent a certain novelty for applicants and society. Accordingly, taking all of this into account, this decision was made as a one-time exception.”
NAEC Results and Concerns
The Georgian National Assessment and Examinations Center (NAEC) reported that more than 43,000 applicants had registered for the Unified National Examinations in 2026. It clarified that 39,689 applicants actually sat the exams, of whom 34,150 were admitted to higher or vocational education programmes.
According to NAEC’s data, 29,481 students have been admitted to bachelor’s programmes in the latest admission cycle. Of these, 17,862 were admitted to public universities and 11,619 to private institutions. A further 3,141 students were admitted to vocational education programmes, while 1,528 were admitted to Georgian-language preparation programmes for students whose knowledge of Georgian is insufficient to begin university studies.
NAEC said that while 1,795 applicants passed the minimum competency threshold, they were not admitted to any educational program “because they had selected only one, two, or several programs for which their scores were insufficient due to high competition for their chosen programs.”
Experts have indicated that 1,795 is 2.5 times the number recorded last year, fueling concerns that the dramatic reshuffling of public universities under the reform may be partly to blame.
Speaking to the Netgazeti outlet, education expert Lela Chakhaia said that the number stood at around 700 during last year’s admission cycle. That came despite a larger number of vacant places overall, she said, with around 5,500 places at public universities and 7,500 at private institutions remaining vacant in 2025. This year, an estimated 3,847 places remained vacant at public universities and a further 3,540 at private institutions.
Reform and its impact
The figures mark the first university admission cycle following Georgian Dream’s major and controversial higher education reforms. While the ruling party has pledged to make education more accessible, critics have decried the changes as a “deform” aimed at undermining the country’s education system.
The key component of the reform was the “one city, one faculty” principle, under which a given discipline can be taught at only one state university in each city. The policy has led to a controversial reshuffle of the public university system, leaving, for example, Ilia State University, one of the country’s leading academic institutions, gutted of many of its key programs, including in social sciences.
The reform promised greater accessibility by making study at state universities largely tuition-free, with funding partly linked to the number of ECTS credits earned in the relevant previous semester. At the same time, the reform stripped students who choose private universities of the opportunity to receive state funding, which previously depended on their results in the Unified National Examinations.
While there were initial concerns about a sharp decrease in the number of successful enrolments amid reforms, education expert Shalva Tabatadze said the number of those enrolled in Bachelor’s programs in fact decreased by 565 compared to 2025.
The decline was sharper among state university programs, which, Tabatadze said, saw 2,017 fewer enrolments than the previous year, while private universities enrolled 1,452 more students.
The admission data have raised concerns among observers that the reform may disproportionately disadvantage lower-income households, including through the restructuring of public universities, which could push more students towards private institutions without access to state funding.
However, a detailed breakdown of admissions by geography and/or socioeconomic background is not yet available for more comprehensive analysis.
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