THE INTERNATIONAL

JOURNAL OF
CHILDRENS RIGHTS

International Journal of Childrens Rights 19 (2011) 501522

brill.nl/chil

The right to education of Roma children in Romania:

European policies and Romanian practices*
Maria Rotha and Florin Moisab
a) Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania
roth.mari@ymail.com
b) Resource Center for Roma Communities, Cluj, Romania
orin.moisa@romacenter.ro

Abstract
After a long history of living in Europe, latterly in democracies governed with reference to human,
and childrens, rights, Roma children still have a very low education status and very low school
participation rates. The aims of this article are to review the current state of participation of Roma
children in education in European countries, with a special focus on Romania, and to discuss some
issues about how the right to education is, or is not, respected in the region. Data accumulated in
the last decade are revisited and educational policies are analyzed. Particular attention is given to
issues of segregation in education, scrutinized through the lens of Romanian and international
education practices. The article recommends a number of policy responses, including the value
of added cash transfers, as well as action to ensure quality standards in all education settings frequented by Roma children.
Keywords
discrimination of Roma; poverty; school segregation; inclusion; quality of education

Introduction
After a decade of recognition of the fact that Roma populations tend to be among
the most socially excluded members of society, in February 2011 the EU reviewed
its priorities concerning childrens rights, and restated that Roma children are
especially vulnerable to poor health, poor housing, poor nutrition, exclusion,
discrimination and violence (European Commission, 2011b: 9-10).
In spite of the consensus on the importance of education for their emancipation, educational practices in relation to Roma children have not been yet
proved successful. Roma children have to face the general requirements of school
while carrying a number of historically accumulated social, cultural and economic

*) Florin Moisas contribution to this article is funded by the Sectoral Operational Program for
Human Resources Development, POSDRU 6/1.5/S/3.
Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2011

DOI 10.1163/157181811X584587

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disadvantages. The exclusion and marginalization linked with the identity of

being a Roma justify the need to explore the way childrens rights, and minority
rights, can be better used to assure the access of this group to quality education.
One of the objectives of this article is to explore the situation regarding education
of Roma children in European countries, with a special focus on Romania, and
to outline major themes within the literature that addresses this situation and
investigate what might improve it.
The article is organized as follows. The background section examines the social
and historical context of the participation in education of Roma, before and
after 1989. Educational exclusion of Roma is examined with reference to several
European and international documents. Data are presented to document the
educational gap between the Roma population and the majority, which is then
analysed through the lens of major discourses: those of poverty, cultural rights
and the right to non-discrimination. Barriers to the inclusion of Roma children
in education are presented in relation to current practices in Romania and elsewhere in Europe. The following section deals with the main anti-discrimination
policies, particularly those that respond to desegregation in school and classes and
armative action measures, in the context of recent EU calls for an EU Strategy
on Roma. The conclusion draws attention to the need for consistent support to
enable Roma to benet fully from the educational system.

The Roma in Europe. Social and historical background

Today, after centuries of oppression as slaves or nomads and persecution as an
inferior race, the Roma are facing a new set of challenges and discriminatory practices. Roma communities suer disproportionately high levels of poverty, unemployment, poor housing and low education (Ringold, 2000; Fleck and Rughinis,
2007; Gog and Roth, manuscript, 2010). In a Europe so proud of its human
rights and non-discrimination policies, the Roma continue to be its most discriminated ethnicity. The social status of the Roma is associated with a history of
blame for a way of life at the margins of society, with an identity marked even to
this day by low educational status and travelling (Hancock, 1987).
Attempts to integrate the Roma into European cultures date back to the
Enlightenment (Petrova, 2004). Methods applied in civilizing the Roma
included rules forbidding the use of Romani language, separating children from
parents in workhouses, denying the right to use horses and wagons, and compulsory adoption of the clothing and language of village people (Petrova, 2004).
Although such methods might be thought long forgotten, forced sterilization of
Romani women (Gokcen, 2010) was a practice in Central and Eastern Europe
communist countries. Enrolling Roma children into special schools for children
with mental retardation (Vincze and Harabula, 2008), often away from their

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parents and communities (Ringold, 2000) continues to be a common practice in

some Eastern European countries, for example Serbia (Open Society Institute,
2010).
During the Communist era there were fewer visible discrepancies between
the Roma and the majority of families with many children. State authorities
tried to homogenize the society converting the Roma into good citizens and
disciplined workers (Barany, 2001; Gog and Roth, 2010), sometimes by forcing permanent settlement, like in Romania and Czechoslovakia (Oravec, 2005).
Although Roma were able to work in agriculture or to enrol for unskilled jobs,
they did not become socially included, nor was the problem of education solved
(Barany, 2001). Subjected to assimilation, many Roma children had diculty in
adapting to mainstream schools and ended up in special schools or did not graduate (Barany, 2001).
The political shift in 1989 in the Central and Eastern Europe communist
countries did not bring about the desired prosperity for the Roma. On the
contrary, it widened the gap between the relatively better-o and the socioeconomically deprived, among which the Roma were over-represented (Rat,
2006). Roma exceed by far poverty indicators for all other ethnic groups, and
unemployment among Roma substantially exceeds average non-Roma rates in all
countries, especially in long term unemployment (Milcher and Ivanov, 2004;
UNDP, 2007).
Accession to the European Union did not bring guarantees to end discrimination against the Roma. Nor did migration, a solution chosen by many Roma to
escape poverty, bring them the envisaged prosperity and tolerance. They continue
to be considered a burden in their countries of origin, as well as in the Western
countries of destination (UNDP, 2007).
Romania has the largest population of Roma people in Europe, with an ocial
count at the 2002 Census of 535,140 Roma, representing 2.46 percent of the
population, an increase from the 1.75 percent of the 1992 Census. The unocial
estimations range from 1,800,000 to 2,500,000, meaning 8.3% to 11.5% of the
population (Roma Education Fund, 2007). The Roma population is much
younger than the majority population: 34% are children below 14 years, compared to 19.2% in whole population (CASPIS, 2002).
As for their quality of life, the poverty rate for Roma people in Romania is
almost three times the national average (CASPIS, 2002). It deepened after the
political shift in 1989. They were the rst to lose their jobs, and also their accommodation, after 1989. Many moved to marginal and often overcrowded neighbourhoods and to ethnically compact settlements, where Pantea (2007) observed
the re-traditionalisation of the Roma population (submission of women to men,
early marriage for girls, child labour). Many lack identity and property papers,
so that neither adults nor children can benet from dierent forms of social protection, thereby deepening their relative disadvantage compared to the majority

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population (Rat, 2006). For many of them, their only constant sources of income
are child allowances and social benets (CASPIS, 2002).

Educational exclusion of the Roma

In agreement with the Millennium development goals1, the World Education
Forum in Dakar adopted in 2000 a platform called Education for All (EFA) that
set the goal of increasing the chances for children to participate in quality education and to monitor progress towards a signicant reduction of the out-of-school
population by 2015. This goal targeted vulnerable groups at risk of exclusion:
children in dicult circumstances and those belonging to ethnic minorities.
After a decade UNESCO reports substantial progress of Eastern European countries in extending enrolment, but also names the Roma community as falling
below national majority populations in most Central and Eastern European
countries for educational outcomes (UNESCO, 2010). Reports for Roma children showed the lowest European rates of attending secondary school (no more
than 20% to 25%) and a high drop out amongst those already in primary schools.
For example, 15% to 20% of Roma children in Bulgaria and 30% in Romania
drop out of school below the fourth grade. Two out of three Roma (compared
with one in seven in majority communities) do not complete primary school, and
two out of ve (compared to one in 20 in majority communities) do not attend
primary school. As a result, one in four of Roma surveyed are illiterate, 38% of
Roma children did not complete elementary school, compared to only 4% for
children from majority households and only 8% of Roma respondents reported
having completed secondary education or above, compared to 64% of majority
respondents (UNDP, 2007).
According to the Education for All Global Monitoring Report, low participation in kindergarten and in early education programmes is an important cause of
low educational performances of Roma children (Eurochild, 2010). Roma children living in Serbia do participate less in pre-school programmes then their Serb
co-nationals (attaining less than one-sixth of the participation of their co-national
age group (UNESCO, 2009)). In Romania participation of Roma children in
preschool is under 20% (Open Society Institute, 2007).
The Roma in Central Europe have much lower literacy levels than those of the
majority population (UNESCO, 2005). For example, 13% of Roma children
aged 12, or above, reached grade 5 compared to 63% of similar age ethnic majority children. Literacy rate for Roma people aged 15-24 is 72%, compared to 95%
in their close proximity neighbourhood (UNDP, 2005). Wherever they are in

1)

See http://mdgr.undp.sk/

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Europe, Roma children tend to be especially aected by early school leaving

and have a poor quality of education (European Commission, 2011a). Low
school participation and early school drop-out of the Roma is due to lack of
birth registration, low participation in early childhood and preschool education,
and is often linked with labour exploitation, early marriages and tracking
(Pantea, 2007; European Commission, 2011b). Segregation is a particularly crucial barrier preventing access to quality education for Roma children (European
Commission, 2011b).
Looking at the data for the Roma in Southeastern Europe (SE), UNDP
(2006) found that keeping Roma children in school is the central problem
of education: they spend, on average, less than half the time of children from
majority households. Low participation of Roma children in school is associated
with a high rate of poverty in Roma families, which is also associated with low
parental involvement and child labour (Pantea, 2007). Within the population
not following any form of education, approximately 80% are Roma (Roma
Education Fund, 2007). Estimates of illiteracy among the Roma in Romania are
extremely high: over one third (38.6%) are estimated to be functionally illiterate
(CASPIS, 2002).
In Romania, 80% of Roma children live in poverty, and 43.3% in severe
poverty (CASPIS, 2002). According to 2002 Romanian Census data, 26.2% of
the Roma population over the age of 10 did not complete their primary education and 25.6% are illiterate, compared to 4.9% and 2.6% in the general population (Andreescu, 2004). School participation of Romanian Roma children is
evaluated as low, uneven and constrained by poverty (CESPE, 2004), and marked
by a diversity of adaptation strategies of Roma parents and children, some valuing
while others not valuing school education. There are some parents who do not
trust teachers, and do not think that school education can really be useful to their
children; however, most of the parents consider that school is important to prepare their children for the future, while their own knowledge and skills are not
suciently valid for what is required in society. Others, consider that a school
diploma is required by society children should obtain a school certicate, but
one cannot count on the competencies learned in schools; some parents ask their
children to go to school, others leave it for the children to decide, and claim that
children cannot be forced to participate in school, where they might feel discriminated against (Vincze and Harabula, 2008) The education system often produces
school segregation in spite the fact that it has been shown to deliver low quality
education for Roma students (ibid.). In communities with high percentage of
Roma students, classes are often formed according to childrens school performance, Roma children being mostly grouped in the same classes, with lower
education level, in spite of the laws prohibiting such segregation.
During the pre-accession period, UNICEF (2006) pointed to a need for sensitisation and awareness-raising against discrimination towards Roma children,

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which contributes to over-representation of Roma among abandoned children,

street children, working children, those in care or in conict with the law, as well
as among illiterate and unschooled children (Baranyi, 2001; Horvath and Toma,
2006). Despite increased eorts to increase school attendance, Roma enrolment
in primary and secondary education is still 25% and 30% lower than the national
rate. Poverty, unemployment and discrimination in school lead many Roma children to child labour, which becomes a survival strategy for many of them:
While some Roma children give up school when they manage to get some reimbursement for
their work, others try to balance work and schooling, with more, but mostly, with little success. (Pantea, 2007: 7).

In the years around the accession to the EU, the Romanian government intensied its eorts to improve the access of Roma children to education. However, the
exclusion of Roma children from education continues to be a reality and to perpetuate a way of life leading to poverty (UNICEF, 2009).
Parenting traditions are most often blamed for the low involvement of Roma
children in education. Teachers usually see parents as the main obstacles in the
way of better performance of Roma pupils, because parents are not supportive of
their childrens education, do not motivate children to study, cannot be involved
in education and do not participate in meetings organized by the school as
reported by the Open Society Institute (2007: 138). With a low level of education, sometimes illiterate, or stressed by poverty, parents may consider that sending their children to school is the most they can do for being good parents, and
the school should oer support to their children to study. The values parents
attach to education are often ambivalent, acknowledging its importance, but giving little support for children, even if they obviously have problems in school
(Pantea, 2007; Vincze and Harabula, 2010). This parenting behaviour was
observed also in poor non-Roma families whose children are less successful in
school (Ghinararu, 2004).

Discourses, rights and practices in education

The discourses around Roma childrens rights to education dier, according to
the understandings of the main causes of exclusion. Though based on dierent
backgrounds the explanatory discourses presented below all raise issues of Roma
childrens rights to education. The emphasis on poverty will orient to redistribution policies that encourage education based on the rights of children to have a
decent life and resources; the emphasis on cultural rights will strengthen policies
for accepting diversity; the right to non-discrimination raises issues of desegregation and inclusion.

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1. Discourse on poverty as a barrier to social and educational inclusion

A recent world-wide research report arms that opportunities for education are
heavily inuenced by where one is born and by other factors over which children
have no control, including parental income, gender and ethnicity (UNESCO,
2009: 26). Looking for explanations in terms of Bourdieus social reproduction
approach, the capacity to make use of school and to succeed in it depends on the
objective chances that are available to particular social classes or categories, which
represent the most important factors in the reproduction of the structure of educational chances (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977). Children do not enter education with equal social, economic or cultural capital (Coleman, 1990); inequality
is generated in the social-economic sphere (Bowles and Gintis, 2008); the educational system basically does not generate, but reproduces it. Educational outcomes are also dependent on the social capital of the schools themselves, the
communities and peer groups that constitute the social milieu of learning
(Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977). Capital attracts capital, leading to a dierentiation of schools and classes, so poor children with low cultural and social capital
will be educated in poor classes and poor schools, reproducing the low educational status.
From this perspective, research on schooling Roma children points to poverty
of Roma families as the background of low school performance, associated also
with other factors like poor nutrition, high health risks, poor-quality housing, lower quality educational settings in communities with higher number of
Roma school-children (Open Society Institute, 2007). It explains the phenomena
observed in Romania, Hungary and Slovakia by a number of authors (for example: Jigau and Surdu, 2002; Andreescu, 2004; Oravec, 2005; Vincze and
Harabula, 2008, 2010; Friedman et al. 2009) that Roma children are concentrated in the poorest schools, which lack basic resources, where many teachers feel
discriminated against or punished, and the quality of the education is very low.
The analysis from the poverty perspective also raises issues of childrens rights
to redistribution policies that foster Roma childrens participation in education
and contribute to better resourcing schools within poor communities. Options
are usually between universal benets versus targeted benets and armative
actions (Riddell, 2009). Continuous compensation is required to assure a better
position during the whole period of education. Together with Friedman et al.
(2009), we emphasize the need for redistribution by added conditional cash
transfers for disadvantaged Roma families and their children.
Positive discrimination such as programmes for zones of educational priority
and programmes which provide targeted support to schools in disadvantaged
areas are seen by the EU to improve the educational oer, provide additional support to pupils and create innovative learning environments adapted to their specic needs (European Commission, 2011b).

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2. Cultural-ethnic discourse
The cultural-ethnic discourse describes the special culture of the Roma families,
and therefore encourages their special treatment, including in the area of education. It is based on the cultural discourse that brought into discussion the need
and the right to educate minority children to be aware of their cultural heritage
and to be proud of their ethnicity, in classes and schools where they feel home,
not discriminated against and not inferior to children of other ethnicities. This
discourse spread throughout Europe in the 1990s, and was largely embraced by
minority civic movements. Teachers in ethnically dierentiated classes need to
speak the language of the ethnic group. This educational practice is seen as a victory from the point of view of ethnic minority children in Romania, in Slovakia
and in the Baltic countries, insofar as it contributes to the maintenance of the
minority population, and to the preservation of its language and culture in a
specic area among the majority population (Vincze and Harabula, 2008).
In line with this minority rights discourse, in the Romanian educational
system ethnicity is recognized as a basis for separate classes and schools. The
Hungarians in Romania were looking for the right to cultural autonomy and to
set up educational structures where teaching is exclusively in the Hungarian
language, at all the educational levels, based on the availability of Hungarian
teachers. The old Romanian law of education from 1995, as well as the new
one legislated in 2010, state the right of ethnic minorities to ethnically-based
schooling.
Monitoring the education of ethnic minorities in Romania, G. Andreescu
(2004) revealed that there are signicant dierences between the needs of Roma
children and other minorities. While Hungarian communities at the collective
level, as well as individual parents and children express their preferences to learn
in segregated schools, Roma activists and organizations, as well as many Roma
parents and children when consulted, consider that the Roma minority needs
integrated schools and classes (Andreescu, 2004). This is also the ocial strategy
of the Ministry of Education and Research. But several reports indicate that the
inclusive approach is not reinforced at local level, and often educational practices
turn out to support segregation. Integrated schools and classes often fail to reach
their goal of inclusiveness:
Most importantly, the hostile or oensive treatment of Roma children is a major cause for
concern. For this reason, the current measures taken to ght discrimination in schools are
insucient (Andreescu, 2004).

The recognition of the right of Roma children to learn their culture and language
in the school led to the introduction of the use of Romani as a teaching language
in some primary classes, by Romani teachers. In 2007, by an order of the Ministry

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509

of Education2, the terms of the multicultural curriculum were adopted. It referred

to the introduction of elements of history and culture of ethnic minorities at
secondary and high school level, as well as the disciplines of inter-cultural education and human rights at high school level (Roma Education Fund, 2007: 30).
Schools have progressively complied by oering language classes, and Roma families appreciate those (Vincze and Harabula, 2010). Between 2001 and 2002, the
number of persons teaching the Romani language doubled (Andreescu, 2004),
and the extra curriculum was requested in 135 schools, by 24,010 pupils (Roma
Education Fund, 2007).
The eect of this discourse extended beyond cultural and language education,
and led to the creation of separate Roma classes within Romanian or Hungarian
schools (Vincze and Harabula, 2008). Data from the Ministry of Education show
that the majority of the schools with separate Roma classes had extremely low
resources and facilities for teaching, with a very high number of unqualied
teachers (Vincze and Harabula, 2008). Children were transferred among classes
according to their ethnic origin, a phenomenon that was noted in the last decade
by researchers and civic organizations for Roma rights. More and more voices
consider the discourse based on cultural identity as a source for introducing
school segregation, and consider it as a hidden form of educational discrimination against the Roma (Jigau and Surdu, 2002). In 2004, as part of the social
policies taken by the Romanian government before acceding to the EU, the
Ministry of Education and Research adopted norms aiming to combat school
segregation, and presented it as a form of discrimination:
Segregation in education involves the intentional or unintentional physical separation of the
Roma from the other children in schools, classes, buildings and other facilities, such that the
number of Roma children is disproportionately higher than that of non-Roma compared to
the ratio of Roma school-aged children in the total school-aged population in the particular
area [] the Ministry of Education and Research prohibits the setting up of pre-school, primary and lower secondary classes comprising exclusively or mainly Roma students. This way
of setting up classes is deemed a form of segregation, irrespective of the explanation called
upon. (Notication no. 29323/20.04.2004)

In the same spirit, in 2005 the Resolution of the European Parliament on the
situation of the Roma in the EU rmly rejected the racially segregated school
systems in several Member States and called for the launch of desegregation programmes (European Parliament, 2005). The recent EU Agenda for the Rights of the
Child also states that segregation is a crucial barrier preventing access to quality
education for Roma children (European Commission, 2011b). Based on a similar
analysis, segregation of schools and classes based on Roma ethnicity is forbidden

2)

Order no. 1529/2007, MER

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by law in todays Romania, though it appears in hidden forms. European recommendations target desegregation policies, aiming to change the social composition
of disadvantaged schools and to improve the educational attainment of children
from socially disadvantaged and low education backgrounds, with special attention to Roma children. Active desegregation programmes in Hungary and
Bulgaria improved at a regional level the educational achievement of Roma, by
supporting schools which integrate them and at the same time fostering school
quality by extracurricular activities and targeted academic support (European
Commission, 2011b: 6).
3. Non-discrimination discourse
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) states that every child has
the right to education (Article 28) and that this shall be guaranteed to all children
(Article 2) without discrimination based upon race, colour, ethnicity, sex, language, religion, political opinions, nationality, ethnicity, property or disabilities.
In its 2005 resolution on the situation of the Roma in the EU, the European
Parliament (2005) explicitly recognized the need for better education for the
Roma as crucial in the advancement of the Romani community as a whole. The
rights discourse for Roma in the EU targets equality of opportunity and access to
services as a fundamental right (EUMC, 2006: 5). Beginning with the European
Council meeting in Lisbon in 2000, the need for promoting tolerance and social
inclusion as opposed to discrimination and racism was clearly stated in all
European documents.
In spite of the warnings and recommendations of the EU and the civic movement for Roma rights, racism, intolerance, discrimination, and exclusion are the
daily reality of the Roma in Europe, a reality that inuences childrens lives and
aects their schooling. To demonstrate discrimination against the Roma, the literature often draws a parallel between the fate of the Roma in Europe and racism faced by African-Americans in the US. Though the Roma are considered to
belong to the Caucasian race, comparisons are in terms of underground features,
cultures of poverty and racial policies (Kligman, 2001; Ladnyi and Szelnyi,
2004; Hawke et al. 2008). In her explanation of the relationship between race
and educational outcomes, Hodges Persell (2008) considers that colour is a symbolic anchor for racism, an important predictor of grade points, attendance and
drop-out rates, membership of special education programmes, graduation rates,
employment and career paths. Their darker skin colour compared to other ethnic
groups of Caucasian race is an important element of labelling Roma people. In a
similar way to African-Americans, Roma children in schools and communities
have to face historical legacies related to economic, cultural and social disadvantages, although they are placed in a legal context that entitles them to equal
chances in schools.

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The predominant recommendation for education based on the human rights

and childrens rights discourse developed by educational sciences is the socalled inclusive education, or education for all (Booth and Ainscow, 2002; Lebeer,
2006; INCLUD-ED, 2007). Inclusion is dened as bringing together children
with dierent levels of ability, cultural backgrounds and socio-economic status in
the same schools and classrooms, and mobilizing resources in order to allow the
best learning opportunities for all of them. Dening the criteria of school success
by performances of students living in similar social contexts, Project INCLUD-ED
(2007: 59) found out that students from inclusive educational centres obtained
higher levels of educational attainment compared to students from non- inclusive
educational centres located in similar socio-cultural and socio-economic contexts. Inclusion overcomes streaming and other forms of segregation, leading
school children to improve their school performances and social behaviour.
The principle is to maintain heterogeneity by bringing students together in the
same educational environment. Culturally mixed groups can equalize the chances
of students with dierent abilities, and increase the chances of peers with lower
abilities (Wilkinson and Fung, 2002: 425). Positive eects of the inclusion of Roma
children in mainstream classes were registered by Gerganov et al. (2005), especially when children beneted from the support of a Roma teacher assistant.
The advocates of inclusion argue for mixed classes based on the principles of
social learning: values and behaviour are shaped according to the dominant patterns. Research has shown that children in heterogeneous groups usually achieve
better results than those in streamed groups if inclusion is practised by allocating
human resources to help children perform better. In order for inclusive education
to be successful, human resources are very important, mediators or educators
assisting children if they have any special learning needs or other types of needs.
Splitting classes in inclusive groups, by extending the learning time when needed,
by individualizing the curriculum when necessary and by oering inclusive choice
to students, are important methods aimed at successful inclusion (INCLUDE-ED,
2007). All these options require recognition of cultural and educational dierences among students, training of teachers to use inclusive teaching methods and
allocation of nancial resources. This approach emphasises the responsibilities of
governments to adopt eective policies towards the Roma (Milcher and Ivanov,
2004). It resulted in several regional and national armative action programmes
which brought together the emphasis on the rights of the Roma children and the
European resources aiming for the improvement of their schooling.
In order to limit the eects of discrimination and to assure equal chances to
education, Roma activists request armative actions, as a means for correcting
past discriminatory practices as well as historical disadvantages as a result of
centuries of slavery (Surdu and Szira, 2009: 131). For example, Oravec considers
that to achieve equality of opportunities in practice and to observe the principles
of the equality of treatment, special balancing (compensating) measures may be

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taken to prevent discrimination in relation to racial or ethnic origin (2005: 89).

Armative actions are planned to be maintained only till they reach their goals,
and the needs of vulnerable groups are better balanced.

Barriers in school practices and good practices to achieve inclusion

In the last decade several research reports signalled barriers to the education of
Roma children in Central and Eastern Europe countries. The Open Society
Institute (2007) reports that Roma children are more often diagnosed as special
needs students than their peers and are often placed in special schools for learning disabilities students all over the CEE (Central and Eastern Europe) countries.
Promoting education for all is an expression of democracy. It oers opportunities for personal development for all members of society, and it also creates the
stage for the participation of all children in the form of organization which is the
most adequate to their developmental needs. According to A. Faure Atger, segregation of Roma children is discrimination against both the individual child and
its ethnic community (2009).
Looking at school practices which act as barriers to improving the education of
Roma children, Roma rights organizations and researchers identied segregation
of Roma children in dierent schools and classes as being the main barrier. One
such practice is identied as tracking (orienting students into classes by prior
achievements that lead to dierent later professional careers). Findings demonstrated that such practices reinforced the inuence of family background, not
only on educational attainment but also, later, on labour market outcomes. The
earlier the age of segregation (early tracking), the more severe the consequences
for children coming from low SES families and communities. Postponing tracking can provide individuals with the skills that can help more young people nd
work and respond to the needs of the labour market throughout their adult lives,
thus facilitating lifelong inclusion, overcoming inequalities and avoiding postponed exclusion (INCLUDE-ED, 2007).
A similar barrier has been identied in streaming according to learning abilities
of students within the classroom: organizing classroom activities according to
ability levels, remedial and support groups segregated from the regular classroom,
exclusionary individualized curriculum, and exclusionary choice. These practices
were evaluated by researchers in INCLUDE-ED, 2007 as aecting the development of positive relationships across ethnic groups, and the opportunities to
develop interethnic friendships.
The most frequent segregation is the streaming of Roma children in special
schools or classes for mentally disabled children. Estimates cited in country
reports put the share of Roma in special schools in Slovakia at 80%, Macedonia at 6070%, 80% in Montenegro, and 5080% in Serbia (Open Society

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513

Institute, 2010). The phenomenon is still reported for Romania: non-disabled

Roma children are likely to be suggested to enrol in special schools for various
reasons, increasing their disadvantages in the long-term (Vincze and Harabula,
2008: 5).
The data on low participation of Roma children to education underscores the
need of specic measures that favour the participation of the Roma in education
in general, and into mainstream schools in particular, alongside the majority
child population.
One of the programmes inspired by the US armative actions aiming to
reduce disadvantages in education for the Roma has been the Step by Step programme (Oravec, 2005). It has shown in 13 EU and CE countries with signicant Roma population that Roma children can succeed in a supportive educational
environment, in a similar way as their non-Roma mates succeed in mainstream
classes. The philosophy of the Step by Step classrooms comes from the model
called Head Start (in the US) that oered the opportunity to millions of American
children, whose parents could not aord kindergarten, to benet from preschool
activities. Embedded in a child-centred education philosophy, Step by Step was
designed by Open Society Institute to create a safe environment for Roma children in which they are treated like all other children, and provide the opportunity
for them to reach their full potential. Due to their child-centredness, their active
education methods and equally high expectations to all enrolled children, Roma
children achieve academic outcomes similar to their mainstream peers. Roma
teaching assistants are placed in classrooms to facilitate the learning of the language of the majority, to serve as a bridge between the school and the Roma community, and to bring the Roma language and culture into the classroom. Still, the
level of implementation is low, only 11 out of 41 counties in Romania use the
Step by step system for approximately 29,000 children from 63 schools, without a
clear record of the number of Roma children. The Step by Step programme has
been successful in Roma communities in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary,
and Slovakia (Ringold et al. 2005), as well as the Education of Roma in Greece
(UNESCO, 2004: 37-38), Brudila Call in Spain (CREA, 2000-2003) and Romano
Missios Aina ammattiin asti programme in Finland (INCLUDE-ED, 2007) successfully involved parents to achieve the goal of school success for their children.
Community-based interventions targeting whole families can also improve
childrens participation in education. They promote home academic support of
students that contributes to childrens progress in school (Iovu, 2009; DavidKacso, 2010). Going beyond the school walls and looking at ways to involve
families and members of the cultural community in oering support with schoolrelated issues is in the spirit of the CRC that states the rights of parents to receive
support to raise and foster the development of their children (Article 5). Parents
and communities can be informed by school representatives on the status quo of
the educational status of their children, or they can be consulted, or even better,

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M. Roth and F. Moisa / International Journal of Childrens Rights 19 (2011) 501522

they can be involved in the decision-making process3. The more the parents
feel they can make a dierence, the more they will contribute to the education of
their children (INCLUDE-ED, 2007). The encouragement of family members
to participate in school activities has appeared to be a signicant source of motivation and creation of meaning for Romani students (Gmez and Vargas, 2003).
Visits of parents of dierent origins in classrooms in joint activities with children
favour their positive identity formation and help to overcome the stereotypes and
prejudices which exist in these communities (Sunderman et al. 2005). To reduce
the distance between schools and Roma communities, inclusive programmes
organize parent-teacher associations, placement of parents as teachers aides in the
classroom, and stimulating regular parent-teacher interactions (Booth and
Ainscow, 2002).
Other successful armative actions are subsidised places in universities and
other higher education courses for Roma high school and secondary school graduates, scholarships for children, adolescents and also adults enrolled in education
at any level. The Romanian experience in armative actions has already lasted for
two decades, starting in 1990 with allocation of places in pre-university pedagogy
education, and continuing in 1992 with the rst places in social work university
education. Since 2001-2002, up to two places may be allocated to any highschools classes for Roma, with 2000-2500 Roma children currently admitted
every year. Yet, according to research ndings (Fleck and Rughinis, 2007; Coma
et al. 2008), only 9% of Roma aged 18-30 are high-school graduates compared
to 41% of non-Roma, a signicant gap that shows the need for continued armative action. This applies especially in societies where discrimination is present,
armative action becoming the proper mechanisms for changing the conduct of
institutions, companies or individuals (Surdu and Szira, 2009: 26).
Mainstreaming can also raise barriers to achieving good educational outcomes
for Roma. Horvath and Toma (2006: 30) point to the diculties due to education being over-regulated and inexible: children coming to school from Roma
families/communities, often without preschool experience, cannot comply with
the prescribed syllabus. The authors suggest the re-denition of the term integration of Roma children in education, by nding ways to welcome children in
schools, reinforce their feeling of identity as Roma and establish cooperative relationships with their parents and communities.
In order to promote the educational access of the Roma children, a series of
PHARE programmes were developed in Romania with European funds in order

3)

The ve types of family and community participation that have been identied by researchers of
the project INCLUDE-ED as being signicant for education were Informative, Consultative,
Decisive, Evaluative, and Educative practices. Involving parents in decision making, in the evaluation of schools or educators, and investing in the education of parents are the most eective collaborative practices (Included, 2007).

M. Roth and F. Moisa / International Journal of Childrens Rights 19 (2011) 501522

515

to support the Ministry of Education and Research to implement its strategy on

improving access to education for disadvantaged groups, with focus on the Roma.
These programmes aimed: to improve the chances of Roma children to be
successful in primary education, by increasing their participation in pre-school
education; to stimulate the completion of compulsory education and prevent
school drop-out; and to provide second-chance education for people not
completing compulsory education. They oered nancial support to NGOs and
schools for after school programmes and youth centres. Improved outcomes were
reported by children who completed schoolwork together with others in youth
centres with the help of teachers or social workers. Some of the support centres
are run by Roma organizations, others by NGOs aiming to help all children in
communities. Good outcomes such as increasing attendance, improved grades,
involvement of parents, building school motivation were reported by both categories of centres (Podea, 2010).
The success of policies and investments largely depend on the degree of inclusion of Roma children in education settings. The educational segregation/desegregation became one of the most debated subjects for activists, teachers, and
politicians and appeared to have grown in importance with the adoption of the
rst anti-discrimination legislation in Romania in 20004. Subsequently the Parliament committed to the elimination of all forms of discrimination in Law 48/2002,
aligned to the European Union Race Directive (2000/43/EC)5 which forbids any
form of discrimination on the basis of racial or ethnic origin. To encourage inclusion and prevent discrimination the Romanian Ministry of Education expects
County Inspectorates of Education to promote desegregation policies, for example: ethnically mixed groups of students at all levels of education; transportation
of Roma students to mainstream schools with a non-Roma majority; shared use
of school facilities by dierent ethnic students; training and employment of
Roma school mediators; providing additional teaching for children with learning
diculties; promoting ethnic identity of Roma in mixed schools, including via
the curriculum; informing all parents about the benets of inclusive education in
order to deter those seeking to incorporate their children in classes without Roma
students or organize separate classes for Roma; informing Roma parents about
education possibilities and involving them in school decisions; promoting the
teaching of Romani language and culture; training teachers in inclusive methods;

4)
Government Ordinance no. 137/2000 on the elimination of all forms of discrimination. The
English version is available at: http://www.minelres.lv/NationalLegislation/Romania/Romania
_antidiscrim_English.htm
5)
Council Directive 2000/43/EC of 29 June 2000 implementing the principle of equal treatment
between persons irrespective of racial or ethnic origin, published in the Ocial Bulletin L 180,
19/07/2000 P. 0022 0026, available at: http://eurlex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=C
ELEX:32000L0043:en:HTML

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M. Roth and F. Moisa / International Journal of Childrens Rights 19 (2011) 501522

informing parents of Roma and non-Roma ethnicity about the benets of inclusive education.
Measures to combat segregation restricted former rights to organize Roma-only
schools or classes. According to the Order no. 1540 of the Ministry of Education,
setting up of rst and fth grade segregated classes consisting of majority or
entirely Roma children was prohibited from the school year 2007-2008. Although
segregation is now banned, the objective of desegregation is yet to be completed
in educational practices (Stoian and Mark, 2010: 34). In the new National
Education Law of 2010 there are also sanctions against abusive diagnosis of children based on race, ethnicity, language, religion, membership of a disadvantaged
category, which leads to placement in classes with special educational needs6.
Those in favour of desegregation argue that most of the recent success stories
come from children learning in desegregated schools (Andruszkiewicz, 2006).
Cozma et al. found that the attitude of Roma and majority children varies from
acceptance to rejection. Roma children are more willing to participate in nonRoma classes, but Romanian children [sic], as well as their parents, are less ready
to accept Roma children as equals (2000:20). Other researchers conrm these
perceptions and described dierent forms of discrimination and hidden segregation. In a recent report on schools which targeted the analysis of the quality of
mainstream education, Coman and Nedelcu (2010) reported that classroom
organization favours segregation; teachers were placing Roma children in the last
benches by themselves, even after the anti-discrimination law was passed and
debated in the media.

Recommendations
Despite their positive eects, armative actions and desegregation measures
cannot be ecient when they are not targeting essential aspects of the learning
process: the development of autonomous learning capacities and learning skills,
learning motivation and the sense of self-condence, feeling of competence,
understanding of meaning and reciprocity (Andreescu, 2004; Roth, 2005).
Without giving children tools to learn and breaking down the negative stereotypes related to Roma children who are not able to progress in schools, selffullling prophecies maintained by the majority population in their relations
with Roma might reproduce the risk of their (self ) exclusion (Andreescu,
2004). In order to respect the right of children to develop their potential fully,
schools should be better staed with competent teachers, school counsellors,
speech therapists, social workers and other helpers.

6)

National Education Law, Art. 50 (3).

M. Roth and F. Moisa / International Journal of Childrens Rights 19 (2011) 501522

517

Another major risk for progress in education of the Roma is the lack of sustainability of projects and of support for armative actions over time. For example,
the payment of especially trained school mediators was not maintained by several
of the County Inspectorates, in spite of the generally good reports of their activity
and of the awareness of the need for such personnel. If such measures are not
sustained continuously in the present period of nancial crisis, they will have little impact on the diminution of socio-economic inequalities and educational gap.
Analyzing the European Agenda, the last years witnessed several international
initiatives regarding the situation of Roma, starting with the Decade of Roma
Inclusion (2005), promoted by the Open Society Institute and the World Bank7.
The Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Aairs of the European
Parliament requires the European Commission to propose and the European
Council to adopt an EU Strategy on Roma Inclusion. Improving education for
the Roma is one of the priority areas for the new Strategy, with objectives like
school desegregation, early childhood education, measures to prevent early schoolleaving and academic failure, combating the over-representation of Roma in
special schools. With such explicit calls of the European Parliament, the chances
to bring about the desired change in status of the Roma may be closer.
From the rights perspective, the need to improve the education of Roma
requires that authorities apply the legal provisions without exceptions and combat forced and discriminatory, often hidden, school segregation while informing Roma children and parents of their rights and oering them the possibility
to choose the best available forms of education. Anti-discrimination rules should
be strengthened, and impunity for all forms of discrimination or violence should
be ended.
Despite the current reluctance and controversies on gathering data on ethnicity, but also acknowledging the still limited data we have on Roma children in
and out of the school system, we argue here for collecting data on ethnicity and
gender of children in schools. Only a systematic data collection can help authorities to become aware of specic needs, vulnerabilities and strengths, in order for
policies to better address Roma children (Pantea and Roth, 2008). In Romania,
the National Database in Education should become an instrument for policy
analysis and decision making in all aspects of school education.
Armative actions are needed to support Roma children and their families
with the burdens of schooling. We discuss elsewhere the existing Romanian
benets and their limited eects on disadvantaged families (Roth et al. 2006)
where we argue for reducing universal measures and introducing more targeted
cash transfers for disadvantaged families. A systematic support is needed for disadvantaged families in order for their children to stay in school for as long as

7)

For more on the Decade of Roma Inclusion see www.romadecade.org

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M. Roth and F. Moisa / International Journal of Childrens Rights 19 (2011) 501522

possible, at least until graduation from compulsory education. We agree with

Friedman et al. (2009), who argue for conditional cash transfers as added benets
that can be oered based on school enrolment and/or attendance (rather than on
threats of removing universal benets), covering the total costs of schooling,
so that a family should not suer shortage of income due to the schooling of
the child.
Pre-school education is also an area that should be taken into consideration, as
a pre-condition for school success of Roma children. Eurochild (2010) and many
others join in emphasising the need for early childhood education, with a special
target on Roma children.
Regarding resourcing schools, learning from the attractiveness of special
schools that oer free lunch and after-school programmes (Pantea, 2007; Vincze
and Harabula, 2010), an equally important step would be to better resource
schools with social services by targeting the poorest. This would partially reduce
the burden for parents of all poor children, ethnic Roma or non-Roma. Afterschool programmes could improve performances of Roma and other children
with less involved parents and contribute to equalizing school performance.
Supplementary measures are needed to nance schools and reward teachers
who are successful in including Roma and other disadvantaged children, by combining performance-based criteria with social needs criteria for funding schools.
Finance for schools should equip them with technologies available to children
during their school time or after-school programme, allowing them to develop
competencies valued on the current job market.
Due to the generally low level of education of Roma youngsters and adults,
support programmes like Second Chance should continue until the gap
between the Roma and non-Roma is reduced to a level which ensures access to
decent jobs.
Conclusions
Education is largely present on the agenda of civic and public organisms concerned with the situation of Roma children, creating a dynamic debate of education specialists, human rights activists, politicians, legislators, etc. In spite of the
consensus on the importance of education for their emancipation, educational
practices for Roma children have not yet proved successful. The adoption of several international documents arming the rights of national/ethnic minorities is
not the end of the road. Inclusive public policies are needed that will allow access
of Roma children to quality education in a safe, anti-discriminatory and positive
environment.
This article has presented the numerous barriers that hinder the inclusion of
Roma children in education. It has shown that low nancial resources of families

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519

and schools increase the educational gap. Existing incentives are not sucient to
stimulate poor Roma families to be more involved in the education of their children. The discussion of discourses shows the importance of looking to the specic
Roma issues from the point of view of childrens rights. The rights of the Roma
children to a decent life, within their own families, and their rights to participate
in good quality education strengthen the arguments for developing inclusive
forms of education, desegregating schools and nancing armative actions. This
article has acknowledged that Roma children have additional support needs: they
require more, rather than less, teacher support, and attention, but also nancial
benets (Pantea, 2007). Education being a universal right, the Roma, as other
children with additional support needs, have the right to recognition of the barriers they face, and, accordingly, to receive adequate support.
Improving both the access of Roma children and the quality of their schooling
is needed for increasing the school success of Roma children (UNICEF, 2009).
Inter-sectoral, comprehensive and inclusive policies, together with anti-discriminatory practices, may have a long-term positive impact on the educational status
of the Roma across Europe.

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