Roma Children

Comment: I'm always interested in what's going on in the world outside of the US, and I used to post a lot of articles about world childcare. I have a real interest in Roma or what we used to call Gypsy children. These children live an interesting and sometimes really hard life. I saw a lot of them in Ireland when I traveled there. Here's an article.

UNESCO meeting on education for Roma children

• ©Matéo Maximoff
• Photo from exhibit showing the daily life of the Roma, UNESCO’s Salle des Actes (10 -14 /09)

Education for Roma children will be the focus of a meeting organized by UNESCO and the Council of Europe on 10 and 11 September at UNESCO Headquarters. Entitled “Towards quality education for Roma children: transition from early childhood to primary education”, the meeting will bring together experts – representatives of education ministries, members of international and regional organizations, academics, researchers and civil society stakeholders – from fifteen European countries.

The educational level of the Roma population, which suffers from poverty, unemployment and discrimination, is generally much lower than the average. In Europe, for instance, as much as 50% of Roma children fail to complete primary school. In Central and Eastern Europe, 50% to 80% of Roma children enrolled in school are still systematically routed into “special schools” established in the 1950s and 1960s for children with learning disabilities (Source: Council of Europe, 2006).

They are also under-represented in pre-primary school. For example, in Bulgaria and Romania where three-quarters of children participate in preschool education, only 16% and 17% respectively of Roma children are enrolled in this level (Source: UNICEF, 2007). And as shown in the 2007 Education for All Global Monitoring Report, “Strong Foundations”, published by UNESCO, the most vulnerable children who would benefit the most from early childhood educational programmes, are also those least likely to have access to them.

The meeting will make it possible to identify key issues in education for Roma children and to review effective strategies to promote their access to schooling. It is organized within the framework of UNESCO’s activities related to education of children in difficult circumstances. Expansion of early childhood care and education is the first of the six goals adopted by the international community at the World Education Forum in Dakar (Senegal) in 2000. The meeting is also part of a wider Council of Europe project, “The Education of Roma children in Europe”.