The online education is a risk factor that generates social exclusion for the Roma children in the Republic of Moldova, said members of the Coalition “Voice of the Roma”. Ion Duminica, a member of the Coalition’s Secretariat, said the Roma students remain outside the online education process as they do not enjoy the conditions needed for taking part in this process. This way, the children in a good financial situation and those who do not enjoy conditions for accessing this type of education are divided.
“We have communities with an advanced vulnerability level. The Roma children were excluded from the online education process last year. When it was decided to switch over again to online learning this year, the opinion of the Roma civil society wasn’t taken into account and those problems faced by the Roma population in 2020 weren’t solved,” Ion Duminica stated in a news conference at IPN. He referred to the shortage of computers and to the fact that some of the families and even entire villages do not have Internet connection.
Ion Duminica also said that the teachers and children from rural areas do not have digital abilities to manage online education. Before deciding to switch over to online learning, the authorities should consult civil society and the parents. “Online education became a new factor that generates social exclusion for the Roma community, besides poverty and the fact that the Roma parents have only one task: they daily face poverty and their mission is to survive and to teach their children to cope in the financially precarious position,” stated Ion Duminica.
Valeriu Matac, community mediator in Centru district of Chisinau, said all the children have the right to education and there should be no discrimination against the Roma children. The parents, even those from Chisinau, complain that they cannot engage their children in the education process because they do not have devices and Internet connection.
The conference forms part of the series of conferences held in the framework of IPN’s project “Exposing Injustice through Multimedia”. IPN Agency does not assume the right to decide if the organizers of news conferences are right in the cases about which they will speak as this is the exclusive prerogative of justice, but the exaggeratedly long examination period of these cases, which is much longer than the law allows, can be considered an act of evident unfairness and injustice. IPN News Agency does not bear responsibility for the public statements made in the public sphere by the organizers of news conferences.
