ROMA EDUCATION DISPUTE RESOLVED TEMPORARILY

UNCLAS LJUBLJANA 000275

SIPDIS


DEPT FOR EUR/NCE, DRL

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KISL PHUM SI
SUBJECT: ROMA EDUCATION DISPUTE RESOLVED TEMPORARILY



1. Summary. Slovenia's Minister of Education and Sport has
recently made two visits to Novo Mesto in south-east
Slovenia to address a dispute over the education of Roma
children in that community. A temporary solution has been
found which will place those children needing extra
assistance in special classes. This action does not solve
the fundamental problems of education in the Roma community,
and it has been criticized as creating a two-tier system,
which would further disadvantage Roma students. While the
temporary solution is acknowledged to be imperfect, this
relatively balanced response from the government can be seen
as a sign that the GOS is committed to increasing
integration into Slovene society of the Roma community. End
Summary.


2. The current situation resulted when parents of a Roma
primary school student arrived at the school to physically
settle a score with a teacher who allegedly had poorly
treated the Roma child. At the same time, parents of non-
Roma children (the majority at the school) were insisting
that the Roma students, who were concentrated in this
primary school, be distributed evenly among all Novo Mesto
schools. There were threats to boycott classes until this
change would be effected. Of the 626 students enrolled in
the school, 86 are Roma.


3. When Minister Zver announced he would travel to the city
on 9 March to mediate, the boycott was averted. He also
refused to relocate the Roma students to other schools, as
this would be a violation of the law. His short-term
solution was to create separate classes for language and
math for those students needing remedial instruction. This
move was initially interpreted by the parents of the Roma
students as an attempt at segregation, which led them to
boycott classes and prompted another visit by the Minister
on 6 April. In this visit, the Minister was able to
persuade the parents that the measures were temporary and
designed to integrate students into regular classes. Zver
also said students would not be placed in the classes based
on their ethnicity. Accordingly, 25 of the 86 Roma children
will remain fulltime in regular classes. He vowed to monitor
progress, and if the new arrangement proved ineffective,
pledged to replace it.


4. Comment. As with most of its European neighbors,
Slovenia continues to struggle with how to best integrate
its Roma community into the mainstream of society. The
flare-up over integration in schools in Novo Mesto
highlights that there is still some ways to go to get this
part of the equation right. There are good models already
in Slovenia, which could be a basis for a permanent
solution. In the north-east region of Prekmurje, the Roma
community has more successfully integrated into local
society including in education. The Government of Slovenia
has put drafting an umbrella act on the Roma on its agenda
for 2005 and will attempt to address the problems that have
plagued it most of its recent history: education, living
conditions and unemployment. End Comment

Robertson


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2005LJUBLJ00275 - Classification: UNCLASSIFIED



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