Moldova made progress in including the Roma children in schools, but additional effort must be made for all the Roma children to enjoy continuous education of a high quality, in the same conditions as the other children. The issue was discussed in a roundtable meeting staged in Chisinau today, June 25, IPN reports, quoting a press release of UNICEF.
According to the Ministry of Education, significant progress in ensuring the social inclusion of the Romanies has been made in Moldova over the last few years. In 2011, there was adopted the program for developing inclusive education, which provides for the education of Roma children. Also then, there was approved the plan of action for supporting the Romany people, with emphasis on education, healthcare and social services. There was instituted the post of community mediator whose role is to facilitate the social inclusion of the Romanies and to increase their access to education and other services.
Despite these steps, the education of the Romanies remains a problem given that only half of the Roma children in the settlements inhabited mainly by Romanies attend primary and secondary schools. The situation as regards pre-school education is more serious as only one in five children go to kindergarten.
UNICEF Representative in Moldova Nune Mangasaryan said that in 2014 it is 25 years of the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which stipulates that all the children, regardless of ethnicity, have the right to education. “In Moldova, education is universal and almost all the children go to school. However, many children, including of Roma ethnicity and with disabilities, remain outside the education process. We must join efforts and make sure that no child is deprived of the right to education,” she stated.
The secondary school of Vulcanesti village of Nisporeni district is attended by only 13-15 of the 180 Roma children enrolled. “Absenteeism and school abandonment are major problems. It would be better if these children were enrolled at the secondary school of the neighboring village Cioresti, where the quality of education is higher,” said Nina Sterpu, head of the Nisporeni education division.
Alla Marin, head of the “Tarna Rom” Association, who recently had been on a fact-finding visit to Bulgaria and Serbia, said that these countries have good practices for including the Roma children in schools and Moldova should borrow them. “For example, the social welfare in Bulgaria is paid based on the attendance of school by the children of the family. In Serbia, the mothers of Roma children are involved in information and education activities thorough the agency of ludoteques, where the children can play or borrow cognitive toys,” said Alla Marin.
