Executive summary

The purpose of the present paper is to reveal the basic features of segregation and introduce the principle of integration of Romany pupils into the Hungarian education system. Based on the ideas collected by the help of stakeholder workshops we try to define the objectives of “integration” within the Hungarian context, in order to identify reform options, as well as specific policy, legislative and school-financing changes needed to achieve these goals.

The issues covered in the paper include:

1. Description of the situation of Romany children at all the levels of general education,
2. Description of the four types of educational segregation,
3. Analysis of data gained by stakeholder workshops,
4. Identifying policy options (legal changes, financing models, pedagogical services),
5. Offering recommendations for improving the educational level of Romany children.

In 1993–94 90% of the whole 15-year-old or older population finished their primary education by the end of the eighth year of schooling as set in the law. According to the representative research on Romany students revealed the fact that only 44% of the 14-year-old Romany children did so. Statistical data (Havas–Kemény–Liskó, 2002) show that educational segregation of Romany pupils has increased in primary education since 1990. In 1992 every 12th or 13th Romany child (7,1%) learnt in an institution dominated by Roma. Nowadays this is true for every 5th or 6th pupil of Romany origin (18,1%).

There are four common types of segregation in the education system:

• Segregation between schools – closely related to spontaneous migration, when due to this process the number of Romany pupils started rising in the schools, and even some of those non-Romany families took their children out from the school, who did not move away.
• Segregation within schools – to prevent the above described ‘emigration’ of non-Romany children from schools where the proportion of Romany children starts to increase, some schools set up a class system making the segregation of Romany pupils possible. There are three basic forms of class segregation:
  1. special remedial classes, usually with a lower requirement level, poorer educational work and a disproportionate number of Romany pupils;
  2. special faculty classes offering extracurricular education (e.g. language teaching, advanced mathematics, etc), usually reserved for non-Romany children;
  3. classes set up by misusing the institution of “Roma minority education”.
• Special schools – Romany children go to special schools in a proportion that is much higher than their proportion among school-aged children. The reasons for sending these children to special schools are usually articulated according to the following: due to socialisation defects in the family and to insufficient kindergarten attendance, children are socio-culturally disadvantaged and, as a consequence, they are unable to study at the same speed with the other children, so they require the use of special pedagogical tools and methods, within the walls of a special school or a remedial class. In practice, special schools and special classes generally mean low expectations, low-level teaching and segregation, due to which catching up with the others becomes impossible.
• Romany children as private students – A relatively new method of separating problematic Romany children has evolved recently: declaring them private students and exempting them from going to school. Private students must be exempted from all class attendance and the private students fulfil their educational obligation by taking exams at the end of each semester before an independent panel.

The majority of those Romany students who finish the primary school enter secondary educational level. The most of them continue their studies at vocational schools. At the grade of 9 and 10 the 50% of Romany students drop out, which means that only 32% of them enter 11^th grade. It can be supposed that dropping-out is also continuing in this grade, so the proportion of those who finally finish their secondary education is about 24%.

In order to be able to support the above-described facts by own data we were conducting focus group discussions with various actors involved in the process of integration. Eight discussions were conducted in so-called homogeneous groups (parents, teachers, pupils, self-government representatives, heads of special schools and members of committees assessing mental abilities, civil organizations, ministry officials responsible for Roma issues and representatives of the academic sphere). The suggestions formulated in these groups were brought up again in a new, this time a mixed group (where persons from each of the previous eight target groups were present) to be discussed in the form of another focus group discussion.

According to the results of stakeholder workshops and our background analyses of legislation, school financing and the previous policies we have defined our policy options and recommendations. We are convinced that along with making changes in the legal framework and in the financing system and with developing new pedagogical view and practices the measure of segregation can be decreased.

According to our legislative analysis we feel the need to give voice to our criticism and express the necessity of legislative changes in connection to the following topics:

• The reform of the anti-discrimination legislation,
• Special schools,
• The role of minority self-governments,
• Question of integration.

In our view there are three possible financing models dealing with the education of disadvantaged students:

1. “integration grant” (a supplementary per student grant),
2. project based financing, and
3. the market-type financing models (voucher system and quasi-market financing).

• From the pedagogical aspect it should be emphasized that if the schools would like to address successfully not only a narrow stratum of children but the most of them the basic principles of nowadays education should be changed. Our suggestion for solution is transformation of the traditional school into a kind of “open school”, which main principles are the following:

• School without strict time limits,
• School without strict boundaries,
• Partnership with parents,
• Partnership with students,
• Child-centeredness,
• School insuring quality education,
• School giving equal chances to all of its participants,
• Renewal of teacher training.

Our recommendation can be well summarised by the following: integration of Romany children should be implemented in an integration package, based on the following principles:

1. special concern on pre-school level,
2. involve parents in the school work,
3. school-development with conscious strategy, well-articulated mission, project-orientation, PR and marketing strategies for appealing pupils,
4. minimise regulation, in order to be able to take the local specifics into consideration,
5. program and project-financing, continuous and long-run support of special projects,
6. organising in-service trainings for teachers (anti-discrimination and new pedagogical methods),
7. the regional specifics should be considered as well, (smaller settlements can provide less money for education, the school-conditions are worse).