Czech Republic: Number of Romani pupils educated according to reduced standards is practically unchanged

The number of Romani children educated according to reduced standards remains practically unchanged this school year compared to last, according to a report about the “qualified estimates” of the number of Romani children in the primary schools published yesterday by the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport. “In the primary schools, according to current estimates, 85.4 % of Romani pupils are being educated within the framework of the mainstream standards, 12.8 % of Romani pupils are being educated in programs designed for pupils with ‘mild mental disability’, and the remaining 1.8 % of Romani pupils are being educated according to the Framework Education Program for Special Primary School, designed for a more profound degree of mental disability,” says a press release from the ministry.

Last year the estimates were undertaken by the Czech School Inspectorate and reported that 84.9 % of Romani pupils are being educated according to mainstream standards, while 13.3 % of Romani pupils were in programs designed for “mild mental disability” and 1.8 % of Romani pupils were being educated according to the Framework Education Program for Special Primary School (the same as this year); according to the ministry, the new findings more or less correspond to last year’s numbers and the slight reduction in the number of those educated according to programs for “mild mental disability” must be understood in context – the “qualified estimates” of the number of Romani pupils are primarily dependent upon the relevancy of the data provided by the primary school directors and are not considered statistically valid.

Romani pupils, according to the report, comprise 30.9 % of all the pupils being educated in programs for pupils with “mild mental disability”, which in absolute numbers is a total of 4 318 pupils, and percentagewise this year’s findings are practically identical to last year’s, when Romani pupils comprised 30.6 % of all the pupils educated in programs for pupils with “mild mental disability”. According to the report, there are 83 schools in the Czech Republic in which the proportion of Romani pupils is higher than 50 %.

Those schools are attended by 24.3 % of the Romani pupils in the Czech Republic. Of those 83 schools, 12 are attended by Romani children only.

More than 75 % of Romani children, therefore, attend schools where the proportion of Romani pupils is lower than 50 % of the student body. “The qualified estimates of the number of Romani pupils, especially with regard to the specific form of the Framework Education Program according to which they are being educated, have been undertaken for the fourth year in a row. All [primary] schools have been involved in the estimates for the second year in a row,” said Deputy Education Minister Dana Prudíková on behalf of the Legislation and Strategy Section of the ministry.

“This information is sought within the framework of fulfilling the judgment in the matter of D.H. and Others versus the Czech Republic and is annually submitted to the Council of Ministers of the Council of Europe,” the Deputy Education Minister said. The survey took place at the beginning of the 2016/2017 school year in all officially registered primary schools, with a total of 4 141 schools participating.