Roma and Equal Access to Education:

From Segregation to Integrated Schooling

A Major European Challenge for Achieving Equality in Education

Introduction by Pascale Charhon, Director of ENAR

28 April 2006

Dear Members of ENAR, Distinguished Guests and Participants,

In the name of the secretariat of ENAR it is my great pleasure to welcome you all to this important conference on the Roma and Equal Access to Education, I would like in particular to welcome participants from Roma-led organisations present with us today but also the practitioners who all over Europe are striving to help mainstream equality in the educational system.

I would like to say that this conference on education and equality is a long due one. Issues of diversity and equity are central themes in education in all countries. Many EU member states are making efforts to improve outcomes for children from minority groups, and in so doing are able to draw on a broader base of international experience and research. But this is not good enough! Improvements in education for disadvantaged minorities have to be an integral part of strategies to provide better education for all students. It is also important in that context and more than ever to create enhanced bridges of learning and cooperation between the anti-racist civil society and Roma organisations.

Before getting in the matter of this conference agenda, I would like to seize this opportunity to acknowledge the strong commitment and support of DG Employment, Social affairs and Equal opportunities, in making this event possible.

But this conference is about partnership and our gratitude goes also to Ivan Ivanov,Executive Director of ERIO and member of ENAR, for bringing this venture to reality. I would like also to thank the European Roma Rights Centre, the Open Society Institute’s Roma participation programme, and the World Bank’s Roma Education Fund which, through their support and advise, have enabled ENAR not only to ensure first a wide spread participation of Roma-led organisations involved in education but also to gather a quite exceptional panel of speakers experts and practitioners active in the field of education and equality for the Roma community .

In the past decade, Romani education has been one of the major problems that EU member states as well as candidate and accession countries (including Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania) have been confronted with. There is compelling evidence of hindered access to formal schooling in terms of structural factors linked to poverty, availability of school places and prejudiced attitudes at the point of admission. In addition, racial segregation in the provision of schooling services is widespread with, among other issues, placement of a disproportionate number of Romani children in so called “special schools” for the mentally disabled. Under the pretext of preserving their identity or due to racially biased findings of mental inaptitude and deficiencies, generations of Roma have been deprived of equal academic opportunity and kept in a second-class status. Old member states of the EU are not immune from these phenomena either, with forms of segregated schooling being reported in Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK.

Against that situation, EUn institutions have funded numerous initiatives and projects designed to promote the social inclusion and the educational attainment of ethnic disadvantaged groups including the Roma community. There has been no thorough assessment of the impact of community policies in redressing disadvantages affecting the education of ethnic minority groups however and especially the Roma, Gypsy and Traveller Communities. Under the Lisbon Strategy for competitive growth, education and training have been defined as key areas of development for a competitive and dynamic knowledge based economy. Back in 2001 and 2002, the Stockholm and Barcelona European councils adopted detailed work programmes defining three concrete objectives on education and training concerning the quality, access and openness of education and training systems. These broader objectives were broken down into 13 concrete objectives including the mastering of basic competencies, citizenship and social skills. Educational strategies and policy makers have failed to assess how racial segregation and ethnically based exclusion could be a threat to the realisation of the goals derived from the Lisbon agenda. It is indeed acknowledged by various studies that school achievement among Roma, Sinti and Traveller communities is currently very low across the EU 25 and no comprehensive policy seems to have been devised in this regard.

The conference “Roma and Equal Access to Education” will aim to achieve the following objectives:

1)Raise awareness among the ENAR membership, educational specialists, and policy makers of the specific concerns of anti-racist civil society with respect to the situation of the Roma community in the field of education.

2)Assess schooling practices, including segregated and separate education.

3)Examine the impact of the anti-discrimination legislation and the EU’s equality directives on the educational strategies toward the Roma community.

4)Discuss equal rights approaches to integrate the Roma community.

5)Act as a forum of exchange of lessons in combating ethnically based exclusion and mainstreaming equality in the educational system.

6)Contribute to enhancing structured cooperation between Member States, EU institutions, civil society and the Roma community.

We hope this conference will be an opportunity to reflect in a through manner on all of these issues and devise strategies as to the way forward; it is also foreseen that recommendations encompassing the contributions of all of the participants to this conference will be developed so to encourage the EU institutions and the member states to place education at the forefront of the battle for equality for the Roma and for all minorities.

I would like now to welcome Director General Van der Pas of DG Employment, Social affairs and Equal opportunities. Mr Van der Pas, we know about your longstanding commitment to education for all and we are happy to invite you to address the conference opening session.

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