On September 27, the 2022-2023 academic year began for the bachelor’s degree participants of the Certification Program in Fighting Corruption. 23 participants selected at the bachelor level, along with 25 students of Ilia State University, will attend subjects such as Good Governance and Corruption and Public Policy and Corruption for one year.

"Today I have the opportunity to open the Certification Program in Fighting Corruption for the fourth time and to congratulate the participants of the program and the students of Ilia State University, who chose the subject on a semester basis!" - said Giorgi Klidiashvili, the Executive Director of the Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI).

The first course that bachelor-level students will take within the framework of the program is Good Governance and Corruption, read by Giorgi Chkheidze. Giorgi is the Head of the USAID Rule of Law Program.

It should be noted that within the framework of the certification program, the students of Ilia State University will have the opportunity to receive the certificate of completion of the program along with the credits of academic performance.

The competition for the certification program this year was traditionally big. Applicants from various universities, public, private, and non-governmental sectors expressed their desire to participate in the program. Almost 400 applications were received and after selecting the applications, the interview process continued for 4 days. Finally, the competition commission selected 23 students from different higher educational institutions in Georgia for the bachelor’s degree and 25 participants from the public, private and non-governmental sectors for the master's level. IDFI, predicts that the Certification Program in Fighting Corruption will have more than 100 participants over the course of one year, including candidates selected through the competition.

In 2019-2020, within the framework of the certification program, eight professional modules were created, which in the following years were transformed into four academic subjects of the Faculty of Sciences and Arts of Ilia State University. In particular, for the bachelor level - "Good Governance and Corruption", and "Public Policy and Corruption", and for the master level - "Management of Anti-corruption Policy in Public and Private Institutions", and "Fighting Corruption - International Actors, Anti-corruption Platforms".

The academic year began on September 27 for bachelor students, and on October 3, the certification program will begin for master students.

Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI) started implementing the Certification Program in Fighting Corruption in 2019 in cooperation with Ilia State University. For three years, the program was financially supported by the Open Society Foundations within the framework of the project "Building Sustainable Human Capacity in Fighting Corruption”. Currently, the program is financially supported by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) within the framework of Organizational Support.