Roma Education in 2013: Time for Europe to Remedy its Democratic Deficit
2013 is the European Year of
Citizens, dedicated to the rights that come with EU citizenship. The
European Commission wants to know what kind of Europe citizens want
to see in 2020. While the focus is on EU citizens “in cross-border
situations,” there are basic fundamental human rights issues that
need to be addressed within Member States, issues more pressing than
the cheaper roaming charges and easier online shopping celebrated by
Despite the Commission’s optimism concerning progress on Roma
integration in 2012; and despite the commitment to keep the
Framework on track by dedicated personnel driving its Roma task-force,
the situation in Member States remains grim. The bottom line in
education is that Roma children across Europe continue to face
racial discrimination and segregation.
While Europe dithers and deliberates over what needs to be done,
days, months, and years simply slip by in the lives of hundreds of
thousands of Roma children. Every day a child spends wrongly placed
in a special school, or consigned to a run-down shabby segregated
school, is a day lost forever. Every day a child is denied the care
and attention that should come with the fundamental right to quality
education, is a day of squandered potential. And every year, new
groups of Roma children are enrolled into systems structured to fail
them; systems structured to deny them equal opportunities in a
manner that will blight their life chances forever.
The failure of Member States to adopt an integrated approach to
inclusive education to close the gap between Roma children and their
peers is simply unacceptable and flies in the face of “European
values.” The education components of the National Integration
Strategies lack what it takes to make a difference: Vague intent
needs to be bolstered by concrete targets and timelines, allocated
budgets, disaggregated data that allows for "robust monitoring" of
progress, and resolute action to combat racism and discrimination.
The stubborn failure by Member States to remedy one of Europe’s
most glaring democratic deficits is not just an abuse of human
rights, but in policy terms a calamity that will cost Europe dearly
in the future.
Two years ago, the Commission stated that “Member States do not
properly use EU money for the purpose of effective social and
economic integration of Roma.” The Commission offered its assistance
to help Member States to surmount capacity issues in their use of EU
funds, to address new needs, simplify delivery, and speed up
implementation. Member States have yet to take up the Commission on
its offer. The newer Member States seem content to remain
incompetent when it comes to use of EU funds for Roma integration,
and stubbornly indifferent with regards to inclusion and equity in
education. Beyond the rhetoric, there is little political appetite
for the kind of systemic policy reform needed to break with old
habits of segregation and discrimination.
For example, five years after the European Court of Human Rights
condemned as illegal the Czech Republic’s disproportionate
assignment of Roma to special schools, little has changed. According
to the findings of the
Czech Public Defender of Rights, Roma remain ten times more
likely to be assigned to inferior educational facilities than
others. In response to the wave of international criticism that
followed the fifth anniversary of the court’s judgment, the
government made some vague promises concerning compliance. Within
days, teachers from the so-called “practical schools” had gathered
tens of thousands of signatures in a petition to protest against
any possible future moves to close these segregated schools. The
response was to urge these teachers not to panic, as central
government has no authority to close the practical schools, and
anyway the government’s intent is simply to “transform” them.
Michaela Marksová-Tominová, Czech Shadow Minister for Human
Rights and Equal Opportunities described an encounter with this
particular community of vested interests:
“What startled me most of all was the unbelievable aggression,
the hateful speeches, and the openly racist positions occupied at
certain points by the loudest participants, male and female, from
the special schools. These are the same people who meet
disadvantaged Romani children and their parents every day. They are
the very people who educate those children.”
Needless to say, it’s not just the Czech Republic. A recent
World Bank report states that “special school attendance in
Slovakia is on the increase and so is school segregation.” It is
estimated that in the space of a generation, the attendance rate of
Roma at special schools has more or less doubled in Slovakia. It is
internationally recognized that early childhood interventions are
crucial to success in primary and secondary education, yet in
Slovakia only 28 percent of Roma children aged 3 to 6 attend
preschool.
Such abject policy failures are not beyond remedy. There is no
shortage of precise policy recommendations backed by authoritative
research and good practice. Since 2005, the
Roma Education Fund (REF)
has provided support to thousands of children and young people in
education, from pre-school to post-graduate studies; REF has built
sustainable partnerships with school authorities, civil society, and
parents; and produced a significant volume of evidence-based policy
research about what it takes to do the right thing. REF
interventions have shown that change is possible, and REF
partnerships have shown how to nurture the political will and
consensus needed to deliver quality inclusive education to Roma
children.
However, to have a systemic impact across Europe, such
interventions would need to be scaled up one-hundred-fold. EU funds
could be harnessed for change, but to date have yielded little in
terms of sustainable impact on Roma inclusion. The forthcoming
2014–20 round of EU funding will bring much needed improvements. But
reforms will take years to have any impact. When it comes to
educational opportunities, these will be lost years for hundreds of
thousands of disadvantaged children. Europe cannot afford a lost
generation. Immediate action is needed.
The EU could make 2013 the year to pursue justice for its
youngest and most excluded citizens in terms of quality integrated
education. A first step would be to create an emergency Roma
education fund to scale-up existing efforts, replicate good practice
and serve as a catalyst for the kind of change Europe needs to see
by 2020.
