Giorgi Machabeli, the Director of National Center for Teacher Professional Development, visited Kutaisi Public School # 33 and awarded Marina Iskakova the certificate verifying the mentor's status.

The first time this year, in the scope of the Teacher Pre-service, Professional Development and Career Advancement Scheme, nine teachers have obtained the mentor status and the Director of the Center personally will hand the certificates to all the nine teachers. For obtaining the mentor's status the teachers have collected 25 credits through various professional activities within the scope of the scheme.

For obtaining the mentor status a leading teacher shall:

• conduct at least 4 model lessons (each 1 credit point);
• carry out a research on the needs of general education institutions and based on the research results hold workshops to share experience with colleagues (3 credit points);
• create a learning resource or peer-reviewed professional literature (2 credit points); and
• carry out additional activities / work (16 credit points). A leading teacher in order to obtain the status of the mentor shall collect the credit points based on the needs.

The Teacher Evaluation Group assesses the performance of the leading teacher and based on the evaluation of the documents in the teacher’s professional folder makes a decision whether to grant the leading teacher the status of the mentor or not, and whether to submit the proposal to the National Center for Teacher Professional Development.

The mentor’s duties and responsibilities are focused on the improvement of the educational process and the development of the Faculties and the school. The mentor’s status is a lifelong achievement.