The segregation of Roma children can generally be divided into institutional and ‘natural’ ones. Institutional segregation stands for a situation when Roma children are sent to special schools or classes as a result of misdiagnosis by psychological-pedagogical centers. Roma kids also can be assigned to special classes simply due to their ethnicity and social status. As Friedman observes, more than 60 per cent of all students attending special schools in Slovakia are of Roma origin while in special classes their share reaches 86 per cent.[2] ‘Natural’ segregation is caused by conflict or problematic situations between Roma and non-Roma and occurs in ‘mixed’ schools. This tension often escalates into so-called ‘white flight’ when non-Roma parents decide to transfer their children to another school with no Roma students. The law cannot ban ‘white flight’ as a phenomenon, whereas institutional segregation is an unlawful act and must be stopped.

In order to combat segregation, the Slovak authorities adopted a number of enactments, including the School Act amendments (2015) and the Strategy for Integration of Roma up to 2020 (2011). Nonetheless, their effectiveness raises many doubts. These documents introduce the position of “teacher’s assistant” (Slovak: asistent učiteľa) as a form on non-invasive and integrational tool aimed to integrate Roma children to majority education and society.[3],[4]

Teacher’s assistant is not an entirely new concept. It has been officially established as a type of pedagogical worker in 2002.[5] The rationale behind this position was to help Roma children to overcome language barriers and to catch up with the preschool preparation. Individual approach to children and their parents was regarded as key element of the integration process. However, the current situation with teacher’s assistants significantly differs from what was initially established. The changes affected the name of the position, its financing and the related methodological instructions. The most significant changes has been made in 2009 when the authorities raised professional and educational requirements for this position.[6]

These changes were aimed to achieve a higher educational level among teacher’s assistants. However, they significnatly reduced the number of eligible Roma candidates, as many members of this community lack higher secondary of tertiary education. Before 2009, a candidate for this position should know the Romani language, demonstrate interest in working with Roma, willingness to disseminate pedagogical knowledge, active work with Roma community and individual care for families with children. A candidate had to have a full secondary education or higher education at the first level and a completed additional pedagogical training. After the changes made in 2009, a candidate must have a completed secondary education and a first level of tertiary education with an additional pedagogical one. Nevertheless, many teachers, school representatives and experts agree that ethnicity is one of the key factors for teacher’s assistant position and that many Roma candidates cannot qualify for it.

As of 2013, the share of ethnic Roma among teacher’s assistants in the Slovak educational system was as high as 15.65 percent (i.e. 296 out of 1,891).[7] In 2017, the Slovak Ministry of Education provided financial allowance to 1,710 teacher’s assistants throughout the country. Despite the lack of the recent data on ethnic background of teacher’s assistants in Slovakia, one can presume that the share of Roma people among them remains unchanged.

Another important aspect of this profession is financing. School headmasters often face a lack of resources and deal with rigid system of acquiring funds from the Ministry of Education.[8] For example, for the academic year 2017/2018 schools requested funds to cover services of 3,903 teacher’s assistants, while the state was capable to provide funds for 1,710 positions (or approximately 44 per cent). The state budget lacked 19,815,948 Euro to support the remaining requests. Moreover, the employment contracts of teacher’s assistants are limited to one year. This prevents them from being deeply embedded in the school life and maintain contacts with students; positive effect of their work is reduced.[9] Therefore, in order to sustain its efforts, the state should provide teacher’s assistants with open-ended employment contracts.

In fact, the work of teacher’s assistants should go beyond the school, as they should be involved in extracurricular activities which bring together children and parents from both Roma and non-Roma backgrounds. As one field study demonstrates, the majority of teacher’s assistants are not engaged in extracurricular activities and have no clear idea how these children live.[9] Teacher’s assistants could also be more active in solving conflicts between students and tackling more with school absenteeism, which is very common for the Roma community in Slovakia.[10] Additionally, teacher’s assistants could be school mediators as some examples from Germany eloquently demonstrate. Being engaged in mediation between the Roma and non-Roma communities teacher’s assistants facilitate communication and contribute to achieving social peace there.[11]

Desegregation measures embodied in the formation of joint classes or schools frequently have an opposite effect in Slovakia. An increased number of Roma children in classes raises concerns of non-Roma children and their parents. Non-Roma parents rather choose to send their child to another school rather than to face any possible inconveniences. Thus, desegregation efforts produce a ‘natural’ segregation, known as so-called ‘white flight’.

A recent case of a primary school in Demandice (Nitra Region) serves as an illustration of this trend. In the late summer of 2017, five Roma boys physically attacked a 13-year-old non-Roma boy and recorded their actions on a cell phone. This incident had become viral on social media and caused a turmoil of allegations from the municipality and school representatives. The school in Demandice provides education for 120 students, one third of whom are Roma children from the adjacent villages of Ipeľský Sokolec and Lontov.[11] The medialization of this case unveiled that bullying in school is not a new problem. Moreover, the tensions between Roma and non-Roma children produced the ‘white flight’ effect to the schools in neighboring towns. According to the mayor of Demandice, the school headmaster was hiding these incidents for one simple reason: the financial normative for a student in a special class is 1.4 times higher than for a student in a general class.[12] This fact was emphasized by Friedman et al [13] in their study which linked higher transfer of Roma students to special education units with higher financial allowance for these children.[14] This controversy has sparked even more animosity as the most of Roma children were enrolled in this type of classes. As a result, the local authorities ruled to exclude the villages of Ipeľský Sokolec and Lontov from the school district of Demandice. This meant that the Roma children from these villages have lost their travel allowances to commute to the school in Demandice. This discriminatory act was aimed to expell 30 to 40 Roma children from the school in Demandice and move them to a more remote school located in the town of Šahy. The results of these endeavors were unexpectedly different: despite withdrawal of travel allowances, the Roma children remained at the school in Demandice.

The punitive measures were highly disproportionate and discriminative. Instead, the authorities should have properly treated the offenders. Moreover, they should have adopted preventive and preemptive measures aimed at the inclusion and desegregation of the Roma students in schools. As a result of discussion between the local authorities and Ábel Ravasz, the Plenipotentiary of the Slovak Government for Roma Communities, the parties reached an agreement on intensifying social work in the marginalized villages Ipeľský Sokolec and Lontov and on establishing volunteer civic order service.[15] While there is no information about the mediation at school, the case from Demandice serves as a clear example of how the position of Roma mediator could have been used in order to address the issues of ethnicity-based tensions and segregation.

References:

[1] Amnesty International and European Roma Rights Centre (2017). A Lesson in Discrimination: Segregation of Romani Children in Primary Education in Slovakia, http://www.errc.org/cms/upload/file/report-lesson-in-discrimination-english.pdf.
[2] Friedman, E., et al. (2009). School as a Ghetto. Systemic Overrepresentation of Roma in Special Education in Slovakia. Roma Education Fund, https://www.romaeducationfund.org/sites/default/files/publications/school_as_ghetto.pdf.
[3] European Commission (2016). Education and Training Monitor 2016 Slovakia, https://ec.europa.eu/education/sites/education/files/monitor2016-sk_en.pdf.
[4] Office of the Plenipotentiary of the Slovak Republic Government for Roma Communities (2011). Strategy of the Slovak Republic for Integration of Roma up to 2020, https://www.employment.gov.sk/files/legislativa/dokumenty-zoznamy-pod/strategyoftheslovakrepublicforintegrationof-romaupto2020.pdf.
[5] Metodický pokyn k zavedeniu profesie asistent učiteľa v predškolských zariadeniach, v základnej škole a v špeciálnej základnej škole č. 1631/2002-sekr. vydaný Ministerstvom školstva SR dňa 26.8.2002, http://www.cpppap.sk/data/Pokyn%20asistent%20u%C4%8Dite%C4%BEa.pdf.
[6] Vyhláška Ministerstva školstva Slovenskej republiky č. 437/2009 Z. z. z 20.10.2009, ktorou sa ustanovujú kvalifikačné predpoklady a osobitné kvalifikačné poţiadavky pre jednotlivé kategórie pedagogických zamestnancov a odborných zamestnancov, https://www.minedu.sk/data/att/2967.pdf.
[7] Mušinka, A. (2012). ‘Niekoľko poznámok k problematike vzdelanostnej úrovne Rómov na Slovensku na základe výsledkov Atlasu rómskych komunít na Slovensku 2013’, pp. 71-78, in: Lukáč, M. (ed.). Kontexty edukácie dospelej rómskej populácie. Zborník príspevkov z elektronickej medzinárodnej vedeckej konferencie (Prešov: University of Prešov).
[8] Slovak Governance Institute – Inštitút pre dobre spravovanú spoločnosť (2007). Ako financovať a aké vzdelanie požadovať od asistentov učiteľa, http://www.governance.sk/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/FINAL_interface1_2007.doc.
[9] Huttová, J., Gyárfášová, O., and Sekulová, M. (2012). Segregácia alebo inklúzia Rómov vo vzdelávaní: Voľba pre školy? Open Society Foundation, http://www.noveskolstvo.sk/upload/pdf/OSF_2012.pdf.
[10] Ibid.
[11] School Mediation project in Berlin, http://www.jugendgewalt-vorbeugen.de/projekte/roma-schulmediation.html; Handout zur Fortbildung „Sinti- und Roma-Schüler/innen“ für Berliner Lehrkräfte, Sozialarbeiter/innen und Erzieher/innen, https://www.berlin.de/sen/bildung/schule/foerderung/sprachfoerderung/fachinfo/mdb-sen-bildung-foerderung-sprachfoerderung-fachinfo-handout_sinti_roma.pdf; Verband Deutscher Sinti und Roma, e.V., Landesverband Schleswig-Holstein, http://www.sinti-roma-sh.de/bildungsfoerderung/.
[12] Vražda, D. Riaditeľka zo školy, kde nakrútili bitku žiakov: Špina už bola vyliata. Denník N, 23.08.2017, https://dennikn.sk/860579/riaditelka-zo-skoly-kde-nakrutili-bitku-ziakov-spina-uz-bola-vyliata/.
[13] Friedman et al., op. cit., note 2 above.
[14] Krempaský, J. Šikana žiakov v škole v Demandiciach je niekoľkoročný problém, priznáva starosta obce. SME, 02.08.2017, https://domov.sme.sk/c/20617645/sikana-ziakov-v-skole-v-demandiciach-je-niekolkorocny-problem-priznava-starosta-obce.html.
[15] Rómsky splnomocnenec sa dohodol so starostami na postupe v Demandiciach, SME, 22.08.2017, https://domov.sme.sk/c/20631878/splnomocnenec-sa-dohodol-so-starostami-na-rieseni-problemov-v-demandiciach.html.

* Katarína Stratená holds a MA Political Science from the Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra and is currently pursuing a joint MA in European Studies at the Europa-Universität Flensburg and the University of Southern Denmark.