UK: Babington Community College shows how to get Romani children out of the Czech "practical schools"

Czech Radio has produced an extensive report on the opportunities for Romani children in England compared to conditions for them in the Czech Republic. News server Romea.cz here reprints in translation excerpts of the article posted on the website of Czech Radio (in Czech only at http://www.rozhlas.cz/plus/zaostreno/_zprava/babington-ukazuje-cestu-jak-dostat-romske-deti-ze-specialnich-skol–1293273 ).

Czech experts and politicians have long claimed that the key to improving the situation of the Romani minority is education. The number of Romani college graduates in the Czech Republic remains pathetically low and those graduating from high school are not exactly numerous either. 

Problems on the road to education begin in early childhood, when many Romani children in the Czech Republic end up attending the "practical schools". In Great Britain those same Romani children, on average, achieve far better attendance records and results. 

"It’s necessary to make compromises! Racial relations are on the threshold of exploding. In my view, the Czech Government should use public money to motivate Romani students to study," says Lucie Fremlová, who leads the charity organization Roma Education Support Trust, which helps Romani people in England with education and other questions. 

Mark Penfold, Fremlová’s colleague, manages the integration of Romani children and those of other ethnicities at Babington Community College in England, a top-notch institution when it comes to inclusive education. "A large portion of Romani families in the Czech Republic have no work. Your state has to support them. Romani people are something like a drain on your economy. They can’t get decent work and contribute to the national economy because they leave school without the requisite education or qualifications. The thing to do, in my view, is the following:  Believe that Romani children can learn well, ensure that they receive quality instruction, ensure that they leave school with some sort of diploma, and hire them. Then they will be a benefit to your society," Penfold says.    

According to Fremlová, the situation in the Czech Republic is so bad that when it comes to the question of Romani education, "positive discrimination" needs to be enacted. "This is primarily to do with the individual child. Ethnicity, in my view, is an enriching factor which should not determine whether a child goes to a classical school or a ‘practical’ one," she says. 

Penfold says inclusion does not mean successfully incorporating just some children into the educational process. "On the contrary, you must make sure that you have won all of the children over to the school! The school should determine which children have problems and participate in solving them," the British expert explains.

In his view, what is important is the child’s cultural environment and where the child wants to go. "They have to learn during class time, their progress must be visible, and they must do their best to earn qualifications. Even those who cannot achieve top results must do their very best. It doesn’t matter if the child is a white Briton, Romani, or Somali," he says. 

In Great Britain, specifically at the top-notch Babington Community College in Leicester, Romani children on average achieve better attendance rates and results than they did in the countries from which they emigrated, but the main thing is that they enjoy the school and feel at home and safe there. "I want to stay here, to finish school and maybe even go to university. My parents are also pushing me to do this, they want me to have a better life than they did. They go to the parents’ association at the school and they are interested in my studies," Romani student Ondrej Olah, originally from Rimavská Sobota in Slovakia, says.

Attendance is the alpha and omega of British schooling. It is not possible that a pupil enrolled at Babington would ever have less than a 90 % attendance rate.

Director Denise Newsome says educational institutions have a lot of ways to make sure children really get to school. "If parents take children out of school without permission and go on vacation early, for example, we can cause them problems. Children simply must be in school, and sometimes it goes as far as fining the parents. The fine is BPS 60 per child and per parent. If we learn the family is in financial difficulty, then we do our best to help so the child can continue attending school. If unexcused absences recur, the fine can be as high as BPS 2 500," says Newsome, adding that in extreme cases social workers would get involved and the child would be at risk of being taken into care. 

Lucie Fremlová sees the difference between the Czech Republic and Great Britain as lying in the communication between pupils’ parents and their schools. "For communication between parents and schools to be effective, it must take place on the basis of partnership. It can’t be about a relationship between inferiors and superiors," the expert says, insisting resolutely that "The Czech interpretation of this relationship is very paternalistic, its based on the concept of the ‘white man’s burden’, in other words, that white directors and teachers know best what is appropriate for Romani children. That’s not true!"  

A total of 704 children, 81 of them Romani, study at Babington Community College. In the nationwide evaluation performed by Ofsted (the British body that inspects the schools), Babington, which is attended by children between 11 and 16 years of age, received the highest possible rating of "excellent". Mark Penfold says this is not only because of its successes with educating pupils of various ethnicities and socially disadvantaged children, but also because bullying has been almost completely wiped out at Babington.  

"Some areas of the school are painted yellow. If a child has been bullied by someone and can’t manage to speak up, to talk about it, all they have to do is go stand in that area. The pupils and teachers are trained to immediately come to the aid of anyone in that space so they can start solving the whole problem," Penfold says.  

There is also a box at the school where a pupil can leave a message if he or she is being bullied. In this era of modern technology, the bullying of children also happens through Facebook, for example.

"We have trained a group of students to become ‘mentors for cyber-bullying’. You can turn to them and they will solve your problem," Penfold explains.

Students themselves confirm the feeling of safety. "I have attended this school since 7th grade and I love going there. In the Czech Republic we had to stay in the classroom during breaks, but here you go can outside. Mainly my fellow students looked down on me there, so I didn’t feel at home there at all," says Romani student Daniel Bendík, who went to school in Cheb in the Czech Republic.

"I naturally have to help the Romani children rather a lot with English grammar, which is a bit of a struggle for them, but they handle the material well, they work on projects and get good marks. Last year I had several [Romani] pupils who got the highest marks. The most astonishing thing is that now I often forget they are Romani children," says Adam Richards, who leads arts courses at Babington Community College. 

The Romani children especially enjoy the arts classes, so Richards enjoys a privileged position among them. His Romani charges have even given him the nickname of "vajda" ("chief") and help one another with their studies.