ZAGREB HOSTS TWO-DAY ROUND TABLE ON ROMA RIGHTS IN EDUCATION

ZAGREB, Jan 23(Hina) - The Croatian Helsinki Commitee (HHO) for human rights and the European Centre for Roma Rights on Friday organised a two-day round-table debate on the rights of the Roma in education. The Zagreb event has pooled human rights activists, Roma associations' representatives and officials of the Croatian science and education ministry.#L# The main purpose of the debate is to consider the Roma community's rights in the education process and the current state of affairs in this field, namely how much the position of Roma children has improved in the Croatian education system, particularly in Medjimurje County where there are separate classes, a member of the HHO executive committee, Tin Gazivoda, told the participants. According to the HHO estimates, Roma children are taught in about twenty separate classrooms in a dozen schools in Medjimurje County and one or two schools in Varazdin County, Gazivoda said. For him, it is not relevant how many separate classrooms there are, but what is relevant is that they exist. He went on to say that the education ministry started addressing the problem last October when the government adopted a national plan for the Roma which now should be implemented. About 2,000 Roma children are currently being taught at institutions ranging from from pre-school kindergartens to institutions of tertiary education, with a half of them in Medjimurje County, Jadranka Huljev, an official of the education ministry, told the round table. She added that the ministry obtained this figure from Roma associations, and it could not possess the exact data of Roma students as children in Croatia were not enrolled in schools according to their ethnic origins. Huljev said that all tests for the registration of children for first grades in elementary schools were the same throughout Croatia, and dismissed claims that Roma children were given special tests. She said that in Medjimurje there were separate classrooms where only Roma pupils were taught but segregation was not done on purpose. For instance, in a local elementary school in Drzimurec-Strelec, only five Croatian kids and 79 Roma enrolled in the first grade. Larry Olomoofe, a representative of the European Centre for the Roma Rights, said programmes of education of this ethnic group were carried out in Slovakia, Serbia and Hungary, besides Croatia, with the aim of creating a comparative picture of the segregation of the Roma. (Hina) ms sb