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Summary: This report portrays the issues facing Roma children in education across the EU as resulting from structural discrimination warranting solutions that reach beyond the personal level. It strives to describe differences in the situation of Roma across the EU as representing problems of varying natures while falling into the same legal concept. The Roma population in Europe today is estimated at around ten million people, greater than the total population of a number of the Member States. A recent report published by the European Commission (hereinafter: the Roma Report) described the treatment of Roma as among the most pressing political, social and human rights issues facing Europe. This conclusion is supported by numerous reports by United Nations and Council of Europe bodies, as well as court cases in several member states, together with, most eminently, the Ostrava case before the European Court “Education is both a human right in itself and an indispensable means of realising other human rights. As an empowerment right, education is the primary vehicle by which economically and socially marginalized adults and children can lift themselves out of poverty and obtain the means to participate fully in their communities”. Alarmingly, structural discrimination (segregation and institutional discrimination) against Roma children in education is widespread and unyielding to efforts made at dismantling it. The Roma Report found extreme levels of segregation in both old and new Member States. Many are concentrated in sub-standard schools or classes. Equally Even if they finish primary school, very few European Roma make it to secondary or tertiary education. Disadvantage in education is likely to lock Roma children into disadvantage in adulthood, thus perpetuating the difficult life-circumstances already experienced by the vast majority of Roma. Sub-standard education in and of itself endangers their effective participation in democratic communities and diminishes their prospects on the employment market. The major legal instrument to combat discrimination in EU Member States is the Race Equality Directive (Directive 2000/43/EC, hereinafter the "RED"), which all Member States are required to incorporate and implement. Its applicability to the structural discrimination of Roma children in schools is, however, by no means straightforward. The aim of this report is to examine the ways in which the Race Equality Directive can be used to challenge discrimination against Roma children in school. The focus is not just on discrimination by individuals within the system, for example, Based on information provided in 2006 by the European Network of Independent Experts in the Non-discrimination Field, the report draws on examples from Member States. It also canvasses information from Bulgaria and Romania, as well as regional and international human rights treaty bodies and monitoring institutions to highlight both problematic situations and good practices. While Chapter One outlines the context, Chapter Two examines the personal and material scope of the RED as it relates to structural discrimination of Roma children in education and the applicability of the concepts of direct and indirect discrimination – in particular to minority language and integrative education – as well as of harassment and victimisation. It attempts to provide a complex legal definition of Roma as an ethnic and a racial minority group, as well as of segregation and institutional discrimination that Roma experience on a daily basis. Chapter Three analyses the legal tools available under the RED to fight discrimination, paying particular attention to the use of racial and ethnic data as evidence, the role of specialised bodies and NGOs in tackling segregation, as well as the way in which positive action measures are implemented at Member States level to remedy disadvantages Roma as a group suffer in education. Finally, Chapter Four draws a number of conclusions, arguing that the RED provides a uniquely high level of protection from structural discrimination in education and that it may become an effective tool to fight segregation in domestic courts as well as before the ECJ.
of Human Rights. The Roma Report concluded that ”given the failure of previous and existing policies to remove or significantly reduce discrimination against Roma, Gypsies and Travellers3, and to promote their social inclusion, the EU must take the lead in targeting these groups within existing and new policies.”
problematically, due to a lack of proficiency in the majority language or culturally biased psychological testing, disproportionate numbers of Roma children are placed in remedial ‘special’ schools for mentally disabled children. Residential patterns may also lead to a high concentration of Roma in certain schools, often preventing integration into mainstream classes. Whether living in old or new Member States, the path of Roma children through basic education is too often characterised by absenteeism, early drop out and underachievement. In some Member States Roma girls may drop out even earlier than boys.
Uneducated Roma parents will find it very difficult to provide the assistance to their children to learn and participate in society on a par with their non-Roma counterparts.
where in assessing homework an individual teacher would treat a Roma child less favourably than a non-Roma child. The focus is much broader, on ‘structural discrimination’. Structural discrimination denotes both segregation and institutional discrimination, as well as the discriminatory impact of organisational procedures, whether in schools, or regional and national administration of education, which may include inequalities of opportunity and a restriction of choice. Segregation refers to the involuntary physical separation between Roma and non-Roma, whereas institutional discrimination describes the collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to Roma through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping.