Discrimination Against Roma in Schools

Roma children were already the most marginalised in Europe, then the pandemic hit. Now they are falling behind even more. The Global Education Monitoring Report published by @UNESCO conducted a study that examined 30 education systems across Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Over the past twenty years, though ethnic minorities do have more rights and protections than before, a lot of policy changes have not been put into practice.

Roma people remain the most impoverished community of the EU. Analysis in the UNESCO report found that in the Western Balkans, a stark 60% of Roma, Egyptian and Ashkali children do not go to upper secondary school. In Montenegro, just 3% of Roma complete high school. One key challenge is how this region still hasn’t fully erased its legacy of segregation that was normalised during its era of state socialism during the 20th century.

Roma children attend separate schools from non-Roma children in the Czech Republic, Montenegro and Slovakia. The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has in fact raised the issue of school segregation in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. The report equally revealed that only one in three teachers in the region felt able to work in cultural diverse classrooms. Teachers have a critical role in tackling Roma discrimination through education and example, therefore this is a worrying finding that urgently needs to be addressed.

https://www.euronews.com/2021/06/07/centuries-of-discrimination-still-run-deep-for-roma-in-europe-view