Ramaz Khurodze
Rector of GTU, Professor
In
his historical speech he congratulated the audience on the occasion
of
foundation of technical education system.
On
May, 1922 Professor A. Didebulidze was elected dean of
Polytechnic
Faculty. Three departments opened: Civil Engineering,
Mechanical
Engineering and Mining.
6 years
later Georgia saw first native graduate engineers. In
October,
1928 the departments of the Faculty merged into an
independent
institute - Georgian Polytechnic Institute, with three
departments:
Civil Engineering, Chemical and Mining Engineering,
Electro-Mechanical
Engineering.
Then
Higher Education Minister D. Kandelaki was nominated
Chancellor
of the Institute, N. Muskhelishvili - Vice Chancellor
on
Education and Research. The Departments were headed by the
prominent
Georgian scientists and Researchers.
Due
to reform and restructuring of higher education system in
Country,
in 1930 the following institutes were founded: Georgian
Engineering
Institute, Transcaucasian Power Engineering Institute,
Transcaucasian
Institute of Chemical Technology,
Transcaucasian
Institute of Engineering, Transcaucasian Institute
of
Land Reclamation.
On
the strength of similarity of adjacent specialities, 2 years later,
there
started the amalgamation of Higher Educational schools.
Hence,
Transcaucasian
Institute of Industry was founded in 1933.
In
1936 it
was renamed Georgian Institute of Industry. In 1959 it
was
again renamed Georgian Polytechnic Institute.
Throughout
its existence Georgian Polytechnic has trained more
then
100,000 engineers in different fields of industry.
In
January 1990 Georgian Polytechnic was made Georgian
Technical
University. The major objective of the University's
activities
is to shape not only national, but also international
technical
highly skilled specialists and engineers.