Schooled to death

Slovakia's prime minister Robert Fico has said that Romany children must be taken from their impoverished settlements and put into boarding schools to hasten their “integration”.

With his party leading opinion polls ahead of a June general election, the Slovak prime minister has said the schools were the only way to break a cycle of exclusion in which most Romany kids grow up without any hope of joining mainstream society.

"The (next) government's agenda must include a programme designed to gradually put as many Roma children as possible into boarding schools and gradually separate them from the life they live in their settlements," Fico said.

"It seems that there is no other system. Many things have been tried... If we don't do it, we will raise another generation of Roma which will not be able to integrate."

Slovak deputy Prime Minister for minority issues Dusan Caplovic said the plan had received preliminary approval from top Romany officials and children would only attend boarding schools if their parents agree.

Up to around 10 percent of Slovakia's 5.4 million people are Romany. Most live on the margins of society in squalid settlements with limited access to education, electricity and running water. In many communities, unemployment runs at well over 50 percent.

Last year, Slovakia faced criticism after a video showed police abusing a group of Romany boys, while in 2008 a court sentenced two officers for beating a Roma man to death at a police station in 2001.

But Amnesty International has warned that establishing boarding schools for Romani children “and gradually detach[ing] them from the way of living they currently experience in the settlements“ is discriminatory and a blatant attack on the Romany way of life.

“The idea that Romani children have to be removed from their families and put into boarding schools, when they could be educated in normal schools near their homes, is clearly against the best interests of the child. Uprooting from their surroundings and removing them from their families, is an attack on their identity,” said Halya Gowan, Europe and Central Asia Programme Director.

The fact that some Romani families living in settlements – as other families in Slovakia – experience challenges to supporting the education of children because of poverty, language barriers and other factors, highlights the need for government to provide support and assistance to all to overcome such barriers.

“Isolated from the outside world, Romani children will find it more difficult to fully participate in Slovak society. The government’s proposal will perpetuate the segregation they experience now. In fact it will make it official,” Halya Gowan said.

“The government's proposal is completely out of tune with developments in the European Union. If adopted, it will be in absolute contravention of both Slovak law and international human rights standards on non-discrimination by which Slovakia is bound.”

Amnesty International has previously voiced serious concerns about the discrimination and segregation Romani children experience in Slovak schools, including through their placement in special schools and classes for pupils with mental disabilities.

“Rather than establishing another parallel system of separate education for children based on their ethnicity, it is necessary that the Slovak government focus its efforts towards ensuring that mainstream schools include all children regardless of the social background, language or other abilities,” Halya Gowan said.