A Bachelor’s in economics, a doctorate in law or a Master’s in pedagogy. In the Czech Republic, thanks to special scholarships, the number of Romani college graduates is slowly increasing.
Experts point out that successful Romani professionals serve as role models for other Roma and can improve relations between the minority and the majority society. Only a fraction of Romani people, however, are making it into higher education.
Tomáš Bystrý, an editor and moderator at Czech Radio, said his parents always told him: "You’re a Roma guy, you have to make 100 times more of an effort than your friends." Today Bystrý says, "I didn’t agree with that."
In addition to the support of his family, the top student was lucky to attend a good primary school. "I was the chair of the student council and later of the children’s parliament for all of Prague, the school director and my teachers invested great hopes in me," he says.
Bystrý ultimately graduated with a degree in journalism, which was his dream, from Charles University and now is continuing his media studies at Metropolitan University thanks to a scholarship for Romani college students. The special financial support for young Roma makes it possible for those who would otherwise never consider college to attend.
That is also the case of Lucie Balážová from Roudnice nad Labem, who has just completed her first year in business management and corporate finance studies, majoring in accounting, at the Administration and Finance College (Vysoká škola finanční a správní). "A friend told me about the scholarship and I was really enthusiastic about the existence of this opportunity," she says, as she plans to help her mother with her small masonry company when her studies are complete.
The number of Romani scholarship recipients has increased in recent years. While 59 students were awarded such support between 2005 and 2009, between 2010 and 2013 that number rose to 151.
"They are predominantly students in pedagogical departments, but in recent years a lot of economics students have turned up as well," Iva Hlaváčková of the ROMEA organization, which has been coordinating the scholarships in the Czech Republic since 2010, told news server iDNES.cz. Romani people interested in college studies can also attend free preparatory courses run by the Slovo 21 nonprofit.
"Each student agrees on the content he or she will study directly with the lecturer. It depends on what exactly they need to prepare for," explains project coordinator Martina Horváthová.
Since 2004, of the 251 people graduating from these courses, 142 have been accepted to university. The Romani people contacted for this article agree that the growing number of Romani college students is of great benefit to both the majority society and the minority.
However, the Roma also point out that there are still very few college graduates in their communities. Horváthová believes low levels of Romani educational achievement are preventing them from more active involvement in society and from defending their rights.
"We need to have political and also social representation so Romani people can be seen in ordinary jobs – as bureaucrats, doctors, lawyers or librarians. This should become the norm, not an exception like it is now," she said.
Bystrý believes it is precisely such everyday contact with the majority society – for example, with a Romani baker or sales clerk – that will lead to non-Romani and Romani people getting to know one another better and not having so many reasons for mutual fears and prejudices. The young journalist also points out that some Romani college students are ashamed of their origins.
"It’s their choice, they have the right [to identify as they like]. It [i.e., their shame over being Romani] winds me up incredibly, though," he says.
According to Robert Sutorý, a field social worker with the municipal authority in Hranice na Přerovsku, the hardest thing is to convince Romani children of their abilities and motivate them to study. "The biggest motivation is to show them examples of good practice – Romani people who have already graduated from college, who are successful and earn good salaries. However, these people are not visible enough," he told iDNES.cz.
First Rom with a degree
The first Romani person to achieve a college degree on Czech territory was Tomáš Holomek in 1936. The native of a Romani settlement near Svatobořice (Hodonín district) graduated from the Law Faculty of Charles University in Prague.
His son Karel Holomek, who currently chairs the Society of Romani People in Moravia (Společenství Romů na Moravě), also graduated from college. His granddaughter Jana Horváthová is also university-educated and became a co-founder of the Museum of Romani Culture in Brno.
Sutorý has spent 10 years tutoring about 70 Romani children, mostly from socially excluded localities, in high schools. Of those, eight have continued on to college.
While Sutorý also has a college education, he is still augmenting it through distance learning. "It’s a cliché to say Romani people don’t value education. They always very much recognize and respect people who have worked on themselves that way," says Cyril Koky, the Romani Coordinator for the Central Bohemian Region.
Koky is a graduate in political science and public admnistration and says he is grateful to his teachers for the quality education he received, people who fostered his learning from his earliest years. "I attended a primary school in eastern Slovakia. It wasn’t easy for Dad to help me with my studies because he worked for the railways and was gone during the week, while my mother worked the night shift in a bakery," says Koky, whose own son is now studying law.
Expert estimates 100 Romani college students in the Czech Republic
No one knows the exact number of Romani college students in the Czech Republic. Government reports about the state of the minority admit that the transition of Romani people from high school to college has been insufficiently mapped.
Gifted Romani college students will evidently also be supported by the state in future. The recently completed 2020 Romani Integration Strategy tasks the Education Ministry with providing CZK 60 000 in scholarships annually to each of 50 selected students beginning in 2016.
According to the Government material, there is a need to equalize the "educational gulf" between the majority society and Romani people, and cultivating the creation of a college-educated Romani intelligentsia is considered an urgent task (more about the Strategy is available here). The ministry currently already supports socially disadvantaged Romani students in high schools and vocational schools through subsidies.
In addition to graduates of the above-mentioned courses and scholarship recipients, there are also Romani people studying at universities who are not on anyone’s list. "Some of them simply don’t feel the need to announce that they are Romani and they don’t take advantage of the services offered by a wide range of civic associations offering them aid," Bystrý notes.
Horváthová, who has a very good overview of the Romani college student population, estimates that there are currently around 100 Romani college students in the Czech Republic. What lies behind the low number, among other factors, is Romani people’s restricted access to education in general – a significant proportion of Romani people are, for example, enrolled into "practical schools" as children even when they should not be.
Only a small proportion of Romani people head into the coursework required to earn a high school diploma, which closes off their potential path to college. Four years ago the GAC company published an analysis which found that more than two-thirds of Romani children from socially excluded localities (where roughly one-third of all Romani people in the Czech Republic live) go on to vocational school after primary school, while not quite 1 % go on to academic high school.
Roughly 16 % of socially excluded Romani children never apply to attend any kind of secondary education. Many families also cannot financially afford to support a child during college.
Only approximately 60 % of Romani scholarship applicants to date have been awarded scholarships. Many high school graduates from poorer families prefer to go straight to work so they can begin making money.
Moreover, as the Report on the State of the Romani Minority for 2012 points out, some Romani people are demotivated by the length of time required for college or even high school studies. Uncertainty over whether they will manage to successfully complete a college degree is also a demotivating factor.
