Czech Education Ministry says new memorandum should aid Romani pupils facing segregation
The exclusion of Romani pupils from the schools in some localities in the Czech Republic persists despite the measures which have been adopted to eliminate unequal access to education, according to a press release from the Czech Education Ministry (MŠMT). The country was found liable by the European Court of Human Rights in 2007 for discriminating against Romani schoolchildren by allowing their transfer into "special schools" on an ethnic basis. International institutions such as the European Commission and international organizations such as Amnesty International have long criticized the country for this. The Czech Education Ministry now reports that its "Memorandum on collaboration to end ethnic segregation in education", intended to improve matters, has been joined by the Ministry of Regional Development.
“Any desegregation effort on a particular territory requires the collaboration of that municipality and its active participation in resolving the situation,” the Education Ministry said in response to a query from the Czech News Agency (ČTK). The ministry said it knows about the ongoing problems in this particular area and is communicating about the situation with the Council of Europe and the European Commission.
Within the framework of the Memorandum, the ministry and its partners pledge to provide targeted support to the establishers of schools in localities most endangered by possible segregation. There will now be experts available to those establishers who will collaborate with other local stakeholders such as local education department officials, local politicians, nonprofit organizations, principals and teachers in the schools.
“The aim of our activities is to guarantee each child receives a quality education in the school closest to their residence and that there not be distinct differences in quality among the schools,” said the director of the Department of Equal Access to Education and Support for Staffers in Regional Schools at the MŠMT, Jan Vöröš Mušuta.
About 3 % of schoolchildren in the Czech Republic are Romani, but there are almost 130 primary schools where more than one-third of pupils are of Romani origin. In 46 of those schools more than half of the pupils are Romani and in 16 schools more than 90 % of the pupils are Romani, the ministry said in its press release. According to the ministry’s statistics, there were about 4,280 primary schools open during the last school year in the Czech Republic.
The exclusion of Romani schoolchildren is associated with their disproportionate assignment into “special education”. During the last school year, according to the ministry, 10 % of the pupils in schools serving children with special educational needs were Romani. At the same time, 29 % of the pupils who are educated in the mainstream schools according to the Framework Education Program with Adjusted Outcomes because they have been diagnosed with “mild mental disability” are Romani. Pupils taught according to such a program are required to achieve less than pupils taught according to the regular Framework Education Program for primary education. According to the ministry, Romani pupils therefore face unequal access to a quality education.
The counseling centers that diagnose children frequently recommend Romani pupils be assigned to classes for pupils with special educational needs so they can receive more support, the ministry says. More steps are necessary to start restricting such assignments across the board, according to the ministry. It has drafted an adjustment to the financing system to reflect the difficulty of providing education in schools attended by a higher number of pupils from disadvantaged families. The adjustment would be introduced by an amendment to the Act on Education approved by the Government in early October. Another amendment to the Act on Education should provide greater supervision over the practices of educational counseling facilities and also aid the situation.
According to the Education Ministry, those participating in the Memorandum are coordinating their work with specific establishers and schools. Thanks to the Memorandum, institutions will be able to share their data and experience and offer them to specific municipalities for desegregation projects or to address segregational tendencies, the ministry said in response to a query from ČTK. Representatives of the Education Ministry, the National Pedagogical Institute (NPI) and the PAQ Research organization signed the memorandum this spring.
Through its Agency for Social Inclusion, the Ministry for Regional Development will aid the targeted desegregation of school systems over the next three years in Brno, Česká Kamenice, Česká Třebová, Moravský Beroun, Ostrava and Tachov, the Education Ministry said.
“Together we will respond to the ongoing problem of socially disadvantaged children having unequal access to education. The collaborations will concentrate especially on mapping and eliminating the obstacles to the accessibility of education and on creating strategies which will aid municipalities with making quality education available to all children. The Agency for Social Inclusion will provide establishers and schools with the necessary support for this,” Minister for Regional Development Petr Kulhánek said.
The Agency will collaborate over the next five years with the implementers of Local Action Plans in localities with high proportions of Romani children in education. “We have designed this program in collaboration with the MŠMT, NPI and PAQ Research so we can contribute jointly to the systematic desegregation of socially disadvantaged children in education. At the beginning of the year we announced the program and municipalities showed significant interest. I’m very glad the municipalities are signing up to cooperate, they are demonstrating great motivation to address this issue even as they are already implementing many important measures on their own in this regard already,” said the director of the Agency for Social Inclusion, Martin Šimáček.
Representatives of these institutions are jointly creating a methodology for school establishers on this issue. It will support each region, town and village with analysis, consultation and educational activities. The desegregace.cz website on desegregation will continue to be developed. Support for the project has also been expressed by Czech Government Commissioner for Roma Minority Affairs Lucie Fuková, the MŠMT said.
According to the European Commission, the Czech Republic is not upholding the EU Race Equality Directive, which strictly bans discrimination on an ethnic basis in crucial areas of life, education included. Brussels formally sent the country a call to address the disproportionate, systemic assignment of Romani pupils to separate schools for children living with disabilities 10 years ago. According to the European Commission, the Czech Republic may have ended the “special schools” or “practical schools”, but Romani children remain disproportionately represented in separate classes or in special needs schools for pupils with developmental disorders or disabilities. At the start of October, the European Commission sent the Czech Republic an additional formal call regarding this issue.
