The Communications Commission has handed over the media literacy project “The Challenge of Disinformation: Developing Critical Thinking in Schools” to the Teachers Professional Development Centre for further implementation. The agreement was signed by ComCom member Natia Kukuladze and TPDC director Berika Shukakidze. The goal of the project is to raise awareness about the negative impact caused by disinformation, develop media literacy and critical thinking skills, and increase knowledge about Georgia's approximation with Europe. The project was implemented by the Communications Commission with the funding of the EU Delegation and the support of the Ministry of Education and Science. 

The Commission has already trained more than 900 teachers from public schools and vocational colleges across Georgia. Due to the success of the project and the resulting high demand, the Commission agreed with the European Union and TPDC to continue its implementation. 

From now on, TPDC will use the manual and educational module developed by the Commission during the project to train public school and vocational college teachers in tackling disinformation. Trainings will continue in Tbilisi and the regions, including areas with large ethnic minority populations. Teachers will learn about the negative impact of disinformation and anti-western propaganda and mechanisms to protect themselves from them. They will be taught practical methods of identifying disinformation through media literacy skills. The seminars will also allow them to find out in detail about European values and the process of Georgia's approximation with the EU. As a result, teachers will develop their own critical and logical thinking skills, which they will then use in practice by sharing knowledge with their pupils. 

Teachers are trained using a creative interactive module that was designed by experts specifically for this project. The training module is built upon topical and modern approaches, covering important topics such as critical thinking, various ways of identifying disinformation and methods of validating information. Training was led by TPDC trainers Manana Jincharadze and Nino Kazhashvili, as well as ComCom trainer Ani Gvetadze.