Press Release

MCC Marks End of Georgia Compact II

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 1, 2019 – Today marks the closeout of the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s Georgia Compact II—a five-year, $140 million investment aimed at improving the quality of human capital in the country through educational reforms. The compact will equip more than 1.7 million Georgians with better education and training, increasing workforce capacity in fields critical for economic growth, with a particular focus on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.

The $73 million Improving General Education Quality Project targeted areas where the Georgian education sector needed the most support: the physical learning environment, secondary school teacher subject knowledge and pedagogical skills, school management capacity and education assessments. The project fully rehabilitated 91 public schools, benefiting more than 37,000 Georgian schoolchildren. In addition, 15,000 secondary STEM and English teachers, 1,800 principals and 1,400 school-based professional development facilitators received training to improve their instructional skills and management capacity.

The $16 million Industry-Led Skills and Workforce Development Project increased the number of Georgians with in-demand technical skills. Grants from this project developed 51 new or expanded Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) programs at 10 education institutions throughout Georgia. Over 1,900 students have enrolled in these programs and more than 700 have already graduated.

The $34 million STEM Higher Education Project supported a partnership between San Diego State University (SDSU) and three Georgian public universities—Tbilisi State University, Ilia State University, and Georgian Technical University—to deliver high-quality STEM bachelor’s degrees in Georgia. To build local capacity and ensure the project’s sustainability, SDSU will transition to a support role by 2023, with partner universities gaining the accreditation and certification to deliver internationally recognized degrees on their own. More than 600 students were enrolled in the program during the compact.

The inaugural commencement of SDSU-Georgia took place in June 2019. The class of 2019 comprised 55 students, with 20 percent graduating summa cum laude, with a GPA of 3.8 or higher.

As part of the STEM Higher Education Project, the compact also funded a new SDSU-Ilia State University (ISU) engineering building. The new multi-story building, which houses several different engineering labs, is the flagship infrastructure investment under the compact’s STEM Higher Education Project. While part of ISU, it will also serve as a “hub” for all SDSU-Georgia classes and programming. The new, centrally located building, will officially open for student use in the fall 2019 semester.

MCC’s Georgia II Compact included a strong focus on reducing gender disparities, especially in STEM fields. Despite outperforming boys in STEM subjects at school, girls in Georgia are often steered into less lucrative careers, meaning that women, on average, earn less than men. As part of the compact, schoolteachers received training in gender bias to curb the tendency to direct girls away from STEM careers. The first batch of students to graduate from SDSU-Georgia was 36 percent female. And TVET providers participating in the project received training geared at increasing female enrollment in TVET programs.

MCC’s Georgia II Compact addressed crucial challenges across the education sector, helped reduce gender disparities and established strong partnerships. It will equip the next generation of Georgians with essential skills to increase their earning potential, drive economic growth and create a more prosperous future for the entire country.

Learn more about the accomplishments of the compact on our feature page.