Across Central and Eastern Europe, discrimination and non-inclusive school systems systematically deprive children from Roma communities of their right to education. In most countries, about 20% of Roma children did not complete primary school, compared to more than 90 percent of their non-Roma peers. Those who do enroll are likely to drop out before the end of basic education because of the racism they experience in schools and the schools themselves being poorly prepared to meet their needs.
More specifically, in South-Eastern Europe 18% of Roma children are not enrolled in secondary education and less than 1% attend university. Many Roma children are attended in "special" schools and classrooms for children with disabilities simply because of their language differences. Thus there are large equity gaps in the quality of education received by Roma children and their non-Roma peers.
International human rights conventions – such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Education for All and the Millennium Development Goals – have enshrined the right of all children to education. Governments and their partners have signed these conventions and pledged to expand their school systems so that children are not marginalized. However, international organizations, civil society, the global media and the communities themselves continue to draw the world's attention to the adversities faced by Roma communities in Europe.
Greece-specific data show that the percentage of Roma children of compulsory education age who attend school is 69%, while the percentage of young people aged 18-24 who leave school early is the highest among the 27 member states of the European Union, reaching 92%.
But what happens locally in each society?
In Larissa since 2014 there are two primary schools in the area of Nea Smyrna in the 11The and the 33rdThe with the majority of children studying there being Roma. The coronavirus also changed the educational process to a great extent with distance learning and later self-tests in schools. And it may be for most of us that compulsory education at least is taken for granted, but it is not for everyone. Many Roma children were not able to attend via distance education due to a lack of technology, so even after schools opened, without measures and restrictions, a large percentage of about 50% students did not return to the classroom.
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The Common Sense? spoke with the deputy mayor for Social Policy of the Municipality of Larissa Sotiris Voulgaris and the president of the Association Roma Larissa, vice-president of ELLAN PASSE and mediator of the Community Center Nikos Paiteris for the effort to integrate the Roma in education, the way to achieve the goals of the community and the state to implement the National Strategy for the Social Inclusion of the Roma (ESKE) 2021-2030.
Mr. Voulgaris talks about the history and effort of building 33ου and the prevailing situation. "The 33rd meets all the conditions and requirements for modern education. It includes a theatre, gymnasium, multi-purpose rooms and a music room. Both schools are full-day and there are school lunches in order to combat poverty and the lack of food in the family. During the pandemic these children were cut off from school for a year, online education was not so feasible due to the lack of similar media or wherever there was no guidance for the children and it is also a bit difficult for a child on his own to enter an online education when he can avoid it" he emphasizes.
"With the opening of the schools we found a size of school leakage and in cooperation with the Community Center with the Directorate of Primary Education the structures of the Municipality with the Deputy Mayor of Social Policy we took some initiatives in order to reduce the number of Roma students that touched 70% in the new Smyrna in order to direct students to other neighboring schools. Because there were some legislative problems with the movement of students," he adds.
Additionally, he states that "the goal was to enroll these students elsewhere. The first step taken must be supported further so that we settle down and have the possibility of this dispersion that has a goal, the better provision of education, the better socialization and the better acquaintance of the students in other school environments beyond the neighborhood that can it had specific cultural, cultural and educational characteristics. It is a bet that we help to win".
The deputy mayor of Social Policy also noted that "I believe that education can change society and because I was in these schools as a director for 10 years and later as director of education I tried to strengthen the schools with educational staff who are aware of the situation they encounter. Because the teacher in these comments does not have only one level of educational management. Another two and three and this means that the teacher has to manage it in such a way that the children are educated in a different way without creating exclusions, exclusions and tensions" concludes Mr. Voulgaris.
For the best provision of education there must be some basic features such as school supplies, food and clothing for children. Many Roma children do not have the possibility to buy even the most basic items such as clothes and shoes, let alone school notebooks, bags and most importantly they did not have money to be able to eat.
Mr. Paiteris also moved in this context, "after 2005 when Mr. Voulgaris took over as director of the school, in order to reduce the school leakage we went with teachers from house to house, Sotiris won their trust. We started building Roma foundations and patches together. We saw that it is leaking again and it was coming from the work part and from early marriages and it also comes from that. With a difference of tricks in order to keep all the children, at that time the school gave an allowance of €300 for each child".
The president of Roma Larissas explains that "this money was not given to the parent to eat, but for the child to go to school. With this money they did not support a child but the whole family and the child ended up going barefoot or dizzy. Many children came to school fasting. He came to school, they didn't drink milk, they didn't eat breakfast, and the teacher went with the salary he got to buy the children to eat. These children and the generation that passed from Sotiris took some confidence from the teacher. Steps have been taken for the better. Efforts have been made to keep children in school. I will be very pleased with this generation if they finish high school and if they leave early marriages" he points out.
"The social and economic situation of the students' families often do not allow the children to attend school. Because in order for a child to go, he must have and the necessary second, some work must be ensured for the parents. When they are mobile and go to different parts of the country with seasonal jobs in the Peloponnese, Arta and Cyprus, the child will either stay alone here with a grandmother who will have six or seven other grandchildren to look after who cannot afford to support them or if they take the children with them" adds Mr. Voulgaris.
In particular, the deputy mayor additionally pointed out that "even though there is a student card and all the legislative framework provided for short-term commuting is not easy to implement because when the parent wakes up at six to go to work and the school is 6-7 kilometers from the residence, there is no possibility for the child to go to school, so he will take it with him to work, resulting in the loss of a student. So when it comes back, the teacher has to go back in time. At the moment both the 11th and 33rd are enrolled in about 300 students in total each of which 60% to 65% are Roma children. Another help for the parent to send the child to school is the need for the issuance of the A 21 as without it the parent is not entitled to the social allowance. So it is a prerequisite to register at the beginning and to have constant follow-up afterwards so that the parents who belong to the vulnerable and susceptible groups and are beneficiaries of social benefits and the KEA can be registered and have the papers to be entitled to it," he said afterwards.
In addition, Mr. Paiteris, speaking about the history of the Roma and how the school dropout can be dealt with, emphasized that the goal is to find a job, so that the parent can support the child in school and in his studies. "At my age of 56, my parents and every Roma parent were Greek but immigrants in Greece. We went for various agricultural jobs, we were land laborers, we worked in cotton, tomatoes, potatoes, strawberries, with seasonal jobs, we had no houses, we had no plots of our own. From 1974 onwards when they gave us the identity and the Greek citizenship they did not give us anything else to house us as the state did to others. Everything we do, we do it ourselves. These people eventually settled, took a plot of land, built a house, and my father's generation and my trial stayed somewhere. With what is happening now that they have put A 21 with KEA over 70% Roma children I believe they will finish primary education. It's an incentive to get the kids to school, but they need one more to give the parent a job."
Even the president of the Roma of Larissa commented on the fact of delinquency, pointing out that "in terms of work, he wants a program with greater improvement for these people. We don't want services but sidewalk work, to be able to stand, to earn a living so they can improve their children. To be residents and not immigrants in Greece. If the job situation improves for these people, their lives will be much better, they will avoid crime and delinquency because once the gypsy was not the one who is presented now. He was in Greece the negotiator, the spinster went and fed the people with his business, he went and clothed the people with his business and did not steal. In recent years, they made him a thief and threw him themselves into racism and xenophobia. That is why the settlements have been ghettoized because racism and xenophobia existed and still exist. If the Roma combine their work with education, they will go forward" he comments.
Mr. Voulgaris sets cooperation of all agencies as the goal for the change in education, emphasizing that "the goal is to produce as many scientists as possible. To produce teachers who will bring other teachers, doctors, lawyers and society to take a step higher. Therefore, in order to be able to put education into changing a social situation, the goal is to unite all forces to help the neighborhood adapt to the integration programs. To cooperate with all the bodies, associations, organizations and federations of the Roma, to have mutual information in all programs so that any form of delinquency begins to decrease and secondly to shape the society of tomorrow through better dynamics".
Analyzing these dynamics, Mr. Voulgaris stated that "firstly, finding a job, secondly for raising a family, thirdly with the restoration of housing and the removal of new families from the neighborhood which is suffocatingly full of population and giving the possibility for new generations of children to go to other schools and socialize in a different way. The school dropout with various measurements made reached high percentages with more than 50% because the tests could not be done. Now these measures do not exist, therefore we are slowly entering a form of new normality which of course stood in the way. Efforts are being intensified to reduce school dropout" he emphasized in closing.
Roma children who study automatically also leave the neighborhood, as Nikos Paiteris mentioned, "they gradually cut themselves off, they look at another life, they don't look back at the ghetto. To make these people better again they need work and housing. The parents don't know how to go to the night club."
The requests of the Roma were mentioned by Mr. Paiteris in closing, saying that "we specifically request for the new Izmir that housing be linked to work and then to education. In other words, if you give the children a house and a program at school, I at school and cut me off from there, I will change the environment. I will not stay in the ghetto.. So to improve these, work, housing and education are needed. Now with the children who will go to other schools it is to avoid ghettoization. Which child is cut off from ghettoization goes forward. The aim and purpose is to improve the inclusion of these people especially in education. To try not to leave any child out of school and to stop early marriages. If early marriages stop, everything starts from there."
A problem that children face at a young age is that of marriage, especially girls in Roma families must be married from a young age and of course be virgins. This stops girls from the educational process before they even finish primary school.
This serious issue of early marriages was emphasized by Mr. Paiteris, underlining that "especially for girls because the parent is afraid for his girlfriend, as we also have the "honor" of the girl in our customs. The educational process there is blocked and does not progress. We have the honor and without it the girl cannot get married afterwards. Parents are afraid and as soon as the girls turn 13 they stop school and get married. Then, through marriage, the man also stops going to school. All this is created by the ghetto and the early marriages and the leakages in the schools and we are trying to break the ghetto, those who can leave there to save their generation and we are slowly succeeding. Some have gone to Cyprus, others to Germany and are trying for tomorrow. He needs motivation, in the last decade they are taking a step outside. It is difficult to convince a parent to send their child to school even though they know it is compulsory. As a neighbor, as a mediator when I ask why you don't take the child to school they tell me "what will I feed him, I will leave who will look after him. And so he is forced to take him with him to work".
"At 15, the child should drink milk, not get married at 16 and 17 and 18. When a child gets married at 12 and 14, it does not bring improvement, it brings poverty for the parents as well," he concludes.