Only 40 of over 140,000 Moldovan Roma attend university

Out of over 140,000 Roma living in Moldova, only 40 Roma youth attend university, says National Roma Centre president Nicolae Radita. He admits that education is the weak link of the Moldovan Roma community, and that international organizations' statistics on the matter are extremely worrisome. Nicolae Radita said at a press club that about 8,000 Roma children are registered. However, the number is far from the actual one. A great deal of Roma people don't register anywhere, and this explains the lack of accurate data. The Roma schooling issues has several aspects. On the one hand, says Nicolae Radita, there is the issue of segregation between Roma children and other children, and on the other hand, the conditions for studying in Roma schools are very poor. Nicolae Radita says that many schools are closed due to low attendance rates. In such conditions, even the parents who had agreed to sent their kids to school reject the idea of searching for another institution in another locality. In Nicolae Radita's opinion, a solution to some of the cases would be remote education via the internet. “In Buda village, for example, in the last 15 years, only one person graduated the local school”, said Nicolae Radita. The 2004 census indicated that 12,000 Roma ethnics live in Moldova, i.e. 0.4% of the population. Unofficial data, however, point towards a number as high as 150,000 Roma. According to UNDP data, about 1/3 of the Roma are in the category of Moldova's poorest people, with 5 in 10 Roma living in extreme poverty.