(Still) Separate and Unequal: Roma Education in Central and Southeast Europe
DEVELOPMENTS
The Roma are one of Europe’s largest, least known, and most disadvantaged ethnic minorities. Numbering approximately 10 million, the Roma—also commonly referred to as Gypsies—are scattered across the continent, with especially large concentrations in Central and Southeastern Europe. Poor and lacking access to quality education, many Roma live at the margins of society. In 2005, nine Central and Southeastern European governments launched the Decade of Roma Inclusion 2005-2015, a set of programs and funding initiatives aimed to address disparities between Roma and non-Roma in the areas of education, employment, housing, and health. Equal access to educational opportunities is a cornerstone of efforts to combat poverty among European Roma and to ensure their full and equal participation in society.
BACKGROUND
Migrating to Europe from northern India around 1,000 years ago, the Roma brought with them distinctive language and cultural traditions. As semi-nomadic outsiders until the twentieth century, the Roma experienced a long history of persecution. In some parts of Europe, they were enslaved as forced labor for nearly 500 years, until emancipation in 1856. In the twentieth century, they were murdered in Nazi concentration camps. The largest Roma populations today can be found in the postcommunist countries of Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Macedonia, and Czech Republic. Living under communism after World War II, Roma were assimilated into cities and given access to jobs and housing. Despite this relative improvement in living conditions, they continued to suffer systematic discrimination. In communist Czechoslovakia, for instance, Roma women were subjected to abuses such as forced sterilization. Socialist assimilation policies also had consequences for education. In a positive light, it was during this period that the gap in access to education for Roma first began to narrow: the socialist regimes used schooling as a tool of indoctrination, and school enrollment and literacy rates did rise. At the same time, the socialist era laid the foundation for the unequal access to education that continues today. Socialism assumed that differences among students must result from disability (rather than environment) and therefore developed a parallel school system for the mentally and physically handicapped. Many Roma children were sent to these schools.
In the late 1990s, when much of the socialist system had been dismantled, data showed that 64% of Roma children in primary school in Czech Republic still attended so-called “special schools,” while the corresponding figure for the overall population was just 4%. Here they receive lower quality teaching, less rigorous curriculum, fewer resources, and unequal access to secondary education. Additional schools within the mainstream system segregate students into Roma-only classes, and some entire schools became Roma-majority due to geographic segregation of whole Roma communities. Thus, the inequalities in Roma education derive not only from poverty, but also from physical separation into substandard schools. These fundamental disparities are the target of the Decade of Roma Inclusion 2005-2015, under which participating countries drew up national action plans for improving opportunities for Roma in the four key areas of education, employment, housing, and health care. Civil society groups and Roma communities themselves are involved in monitoring progress.
A 2009 report sets out ten overarching goals for improving Roma access to education. Donors, including the Open Society Institute and World Bank, have also designated a Roma Education Fund to coordinate education initiatives. Finally, the process of applying for membership to the European Union also required most of the Central and Southeast European countries to take measures to improve human rights, specifically with respect to treatment of minorities. Since joining the EU, countries like Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, and Czech Republic now have access to additional financing for projects in underdeveloped areas, providing incentive to prioritize the integration of the Roma.
ANALYSIS
What have these initiatives achieved? In 2007, two years into the Decade of Roma Inclusion, an assessment noted improvement in most participating governments’ level of attention to Roma issues, but stated that “integrated inclusion policies with a focus on achieving and demonstrating results remain a distant goal.” On education specifically, individual country assessments conducted by the Open Society Institute found that 15% of Roma children in Romania and Bulgaria never enroll in school, and those who do drop out at a rate 4 to 6 times higher than average. Amnesty International also currently reports that, in Slovakia, as many as 80% of children placed in special schools are Roma. According to Amnesty, this practice also continues in Czech Republic, despite a 2007 decision by the European Court of Human Rights that such segregation constitutes unlawful discrimination. The case against Czech Republic may yet prove a breakthrough, despite that the Court subsequently decided on a case in Croatia that separate classes for Roma students were legal on the grounds that their language skills lagged behind the other students’.
Though there is still much to be done on many fronts, these advocacy efforts have achieved widespread recognition – by international organizations, national governments, civil society – that Roma inclusion is essential to the future of a “Europe whole and free.” Poor educational outcomes are a problem not only for the Roma, but for the whole of society. Moreover, Europe cannot afford to have 10 million of its citizens living in poverty, without a basis for success in the knowledge economy. Finally, there is considerable potential for social instability. Recently, as the economic climate has worsened, the region’s historic anti-Roma sentiment has at times turned violent, with several deaths taking place in Hungary this year. Additionally, increased Roma migration from Bulgaria and Romania to Italy led to violence followed by a surge of profiling and other anti-immigrant measures there. Governments have recognized the need for action and, with the aid of civil society, have developed some promising plans. Sustained political will is now needed, and pressure from a flourishing civil society and international organizations will surely play a role in keeping these ambitions on track. Gains for Roma inclusion are likely to be gradual, but primary education is the perfect place to start building.
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Annie Verderosa is Regional Editor for Europe/Russia.