The dean of the School of Economics started her presentation in Georgian, her native language. I could not understand one word and I was looking around for help. Fortunately there was a translator and the sheets were in English, so we could more or less follow her talk. The dean was part of a large delegation of Tbilisi State University from Georgia that visited UM two weeks ago. The rector and deans from various faculties presented their university. And the message was clear: Tbilisi State University is looking for partners in Europe to co-operate. It became not exactly clear what they meant with co-operation because we talked extensively about flying in Maastricht professors to teach in Tbilisi and that is not particularly my view on co-operation. Language appeared a problem since most of the people from the delegation preferred to speak either their native language or German. My Georgian speaking skills are non-existent and my German speaking skills are not very good. This was already a minor problem during the presentations and the discussions, but became a major problem during dinner. The dean of the School of Economics and I were just looking at each other and smiled now and then. But the food was good and the delegation very much liked our Brand beer.
However, at the end of the morning session, the dean of the Tbilisi International School of Economics took the floor and he gave a really interesting presentation about his school, in perfect English. This school offers 2-year master programs in economics and a lot of well-reputed international economists teach at that school. In addition, they are part of a good international research network. What a difference between the School of Economics and the International School of Economics which is part of, but quite independent from the university. This dean had a good view on internationalization and on co-operation and puts a lot of effort in the development of an international school. He definitely showed us another face of Georgia. I have seen similar developments more often in emerging economies where the “establishment” sticks to the traditional programs and use their native language, while on the other hand “angry young men” present very international programs. This “tension” makes it always very worthwhile to meet representatives of universities from emerging economies. This was confirmed the day after when I received a delegation from the University of York. They asked a lot of questions about the internationalization policy of UM but they themselves could not present a clear view on their internationalization strategy. “British students are not very outgoing” was their excuse and they did not give me the feeling that this was a challenge for them. I think that they could learn something from the Tbilisi International School of Economics. Or would you think that Georgian students are very outgoing by themselves?