Hungarians And Roma In Romania – Two Ethnical Minorities, Two Educational Policies

Hungarians and Roma in Romania – two ethnical minorities, two educational policies

Cristina Pop, West University of Timisoara Assignment on “Comparative Social Policies” “Social Inclusion in Europe” Master Programme

16 years ago, after the abolition of the totalitarian comunist regime in Romania, ethnical minorities started to fight for the right to preserve their cultural identity, an important issue being the adaptation of the educational system to the needs of minorities. The results can nowadays be seen not only on paper, but also in schools all over the country. When comparing educational policies regarding Hungarians and Roma, one must keep in mind the very different social context for each of these ethnical groups. Among the very few features that brings them together, the first one is that they are the larger ethnical minorities in Romania – according to the most recent census, carried on in 2002, 89.5% of the country’s population is Romanian, 6.6% Hungarian, 2.5% Roma, while none of the other ethnical groups reaches more than 0.3% ([Mur03]). Another similarity is the history of rather conflictual relations between the Romanians and these two minorities, even if the roots and forms of these conflicts differ. Concerning the Hungarians, the political level has been the main ground for strife, while the average Romanian often had a peaceful interraction with his or her Hungarian fellow citizen. As opposed to this, the exclusion of Roma people has been a fact from the personal level up to the large social structures. In spite of the different causes, both of these situations are still sensitive issues and therefore require special attention. A final common characteristic I will mention for Hungarians and Roma as minoritiy groups is a certain degree of refusing to be included in the Romanian society, that can be seen as a natural consequence of gathering in large communities based on the cultural background that makes them different from the majority. But this topic also brings us to notice another difference: while the Hungarians have strived to get an education in their own language, children coming from Roma families have always had a high rate of abandoning school. The general state of education in Romania becomes a hot public issue from time to time, mostly due to the economic aspects. Being a teacher in Romania is not a profitable job, the resources for education are lower than needed, the difficulty to change the old mentalities of those involved in delivering and administrating education is combined with the lack of experience of the newer generations – all these are major challenges when it comes to reforming education. As I have always had a deep interest in educational matters and a high preference for multi-cultural environments (also have been involved in a European organisation that provides complementary education for students), I chose to analyze the way that the educational system is planned to cover the needs of ethnical minority groups. As Romania is in the process of joining the European Union, many changes had to be made in order to reach the standards for admission. Changes in the educational system were also influenced by EU’s requirements. Laws were adopted, action plans were made. Implementing these plans is a long term process, but already improvements can be seen. To get an overview of education for minorities, one must first understand the structure of education levels in Romania: - primary school starts at the age of 6 or 7 and lasts for 4 years;

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secondary school follows for the next 4 years; the next 4 or 5 years (out of which the first two will be mandatory starting from 2006) are part of high school or technological/vocational schools; education can be then continued in universities.

The constitution of Romania grants the access of all citizens to education in their mother tongue. The main ways of setting this in practice are ([Mur03]): - involving members of minority groups in teaching and in administrative structures; - developing structures that provide education in the languages of minorities: schools (or special classes) with all lectures delivered in the mother tongue, schools (or special classes) with part of the lectures delivered in the mother tongue and schools with teaching in Romanian, with the possibility to choose the mother tongue as optional subject; - creating textbooks for all languages of minorities; - teaching the history and traditions for minorities during two years of the secondary school; - training teachers for education of minorities; - reducing the curricula for Romanian language and literature in classes with teaching in the mother tongue of minorities; - encouraging extra curricular activities like national contests and summer camps in languages of minorities. The first ethnical minority to benefit from these changes were the Hungarians, as the result of many advantages they have as a social group: - the status of the larger ethnical minority in Romania; - continuous representation in the Parliament and in the government for the last 13 years; - support from the Hungarian government and various organisations from Hungary, provided for projects aimed to improve the situation of Hungarians living in Romania; - the high percentage of Hungarian population in some counties from Transylvania. Thus, policies concerning education for Hungarians (and ehtnical minorities in general) include schools (at every level) having classes or specializations with teaching in Hungarian. Alternative educational systems (Waldorf, Montessori) offer special kindergarten classes for Hungarian children in four Transylvanian towns ([Mur03]). Teachers for Hungarian classes are trained in pedagogic colleges and faculties in all the biggest Romanian cities and also have access to education in Hungary. Policies for the Roma include all the measures taken for granting the right to education in their own language, just as for the other ethnical groups. However, given the specific social status of this population, additional strategies had to be developed. As most children who abandon school come from poor families, many of them being Roma families, one free meal was introduced in school to children from primary and secondary classes. As very few graduates of colleges and, even less, of universities come from Roma families, it is difficult to find native Romany speaking people who could deliver lectures in this language. Therefore, the Romany language has to be learned also by

teachers of other ethnical origins (so far, Romanians and Hungarians). In addition, since 1998, 150-200 places were saved every year by the major Romanian universities for Roma candidates, with the aim to create models of intelectuals inside the Roma communities. In developing social policies for improving the living conditions of Roma, many obstacles came also from the prejudices and reluctance of the decision makers. For such reasons, many of the projects regarding education for the Roma could not be started before 1998. Three years later, even if the legal frame had already been improved, organisations striving for the rights of the Roma were still reporting unjustified abuses from some of the local administrations, like the refuse to introduce Romany language as a subject for study in primary and secondary schools ([***06],”Scurt istoric al invatamantului pentru rromi”/”Short history of education for the Roma”). One of the main sources of differences between the situation of Hungarians and Roma is definitely their representation in the organisations striving for their rights. Hungarians not only have a political party in the government, there are also many non-governmental organisations of Hungarians (from student organisations to cultural associations). As for the Roma, they have a small number of representatives in the Parliament, like all the other minorities; yet, the major part in fighting for their cause belonged (at least in the beginning) to organisations for, not of the Roma. It was only in 1998 when the Ministry for Education and Research officially admitted the need to involve the Roma in the formation of the educational policies meant for them. Looking at the numbers provided in [***06], ”Date statististice – invatamant pentru minoritati”/”Statistics – education for minorities”, there are many discrepancies to be noticed (the data is valid for the academical year 2004-2005): - out of the schools with teaching in minorities’ languages, 87.68% are Hungarian, while there is no school with complete or partial teaching in Romany; one of the reasons for this situation is the high concentration of Hungarians in Transylvania, making it possible and even necessary to have large groups of Hungarian pupils in a school, while the Roma are much more evenly spread throughout the country; - in 502 schools with teaching in Romanian, a total number of 6201 pupils study Hungarian as an optional subject, under the guidance of 820 teachers; the 19812 pupils studying Roma in 294 schools only have 371 teachers available; - the number of pupils studying Hungarian as an optional subject goes from 2600 in primary school to 2502 in secondary school, reaching 1099 in high school and technological/vocational school; for the pupils studying Roma, the corresponding numbers are 13000, 6644 and 168 – suggesting a high rate of not adjusting to the curricula and even abandoning school; - in public and private universities, 4. 84% of students are Hungarian, while only less than 0.54% are Roma (the total percentage of students belonging to ethnical minorities is 5.35). Other important aspects are mentioned below: - while there are 9 Romanian cities with state universities having specializations in Hungarian, there is only one university where the Romany language is taught; seminars and training sessions come to compensate part of this gap, like the

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ones organised by CRDE (Ethnocultural Diversity Resource Center); as mentioned before, training teachers for the Hungarian classes is very much facilitated by the cooperatin with the Hungarian government and other organisations from Hungary; besides, many Hungarians get a higher education; but when it comes to Roma, teachers need special training not only because of the need to learn Romany, but also for the need of a different approach towards Roma pupils; this is why, with the support of UNICEF and ”Save the Children Romania”, the Ministry of Education and Research has been running a programme, since 2004, for training non-Roma teachers that have Roma pupils (the programme reached 320 participants in 2004); according to [***06],”Starea bibliotecilor scolare si universitare”/”The condition of libraries in schools and libraries”, books provided by libraries (especially in primary, secondary and high schools) are mostly old and not covering the necessary quantity; specific data regarding books in minorities’ languages don’t seem to be available, but it is reasonable to suspect that very few books in Romany are available in libraries – before 1989, there was no special education for the Roma and books published after 1989 are not enough present in the school libraries; we cannot make any assumption on the number of Hungarian books in libraries, but their occurence in book stores makes it much easier for Hungarian pupils to have access to literature in their own language; when developing textbooks for minorities’ education, part of the necessary funds for the Hungarian ones were provided by CRDE Cluj Napoca (who donated 60000 USD); access to information was also much easier than for the Roma textbooks; in 10 counties from Transylvania, where the percentage of Hungarian population is high, the local administration of schools has at least one Hungarian person in the management team; in 1998, a decision was made to introduce a position of ”inspector for the education of Roma” in each of the local administrations, but in the next three years, it was only possible to find such persons in 75% of the 43 counties of Romania; while Hungarian pupils are responding very well to formal education when completed with the study of their language and culture, the current educational system is not so much accepted by Roma children; thus, documents like The Governmental Decision 430/2001 (regarding the governmental strategy for improving the situation of Roma) set as an objective the founding of special classes or schools, with a curricula and teaching methods appropriate for the needs and cultural habbits of the Roma; still, there is almost no information available regarding actions taken in this direction; easier access to higher education is given to Roma students in fields related to public services (health, public administration, social care, military academies); Hungarian students not only have a larger offer from universities in Romania (both public and private ones), they can also choose to study in Hungarian universities, under certain conditions; an important part of the strategy for the education of Roma relates to the presumed poor financial status of the Roma families, not aiming so much on the group as a whole (according to [Pop04], the Roma origin of the head of the family is a predictor of poverty in 3 of 7 regions of the country – for the rural environment – and in 4 out of regions – for the urban environment; the average

correlation is only 0.16). Considering all the data presented above, it is easy to see that the education for Hungarians in Romania has reached a stable, positive state. As the percentage of Hungarian population in the country (6.6) is close to the percentage of Hungarian students out of the total number of students in the country (4.84), we can conclude that this ethnical minority will continue to have representatives to carry on providing the education needed by their community. In the case of education for the Roma, it is obvious that the process will take much longer, not only because of the lack resources and experience in this field, but also because of the need to change mentalities of both Romanians and Roma regarding each other. To conclude, we can state that the saying about the rich getting richer is not only valid for material wealth, but also for spiritual richness – this why it is so important to focus more the Roma, until there will be a solid base of an education for them.

References [Mur03] [Pop04] [***06]

Murvai L., Ali L., Cosmatu C., Kovaci I., Sarău G., Stanciu F., Timar V. (2003), Dimensiuni ale invatamantului minoritatilor nationale din Romania (Dimensions of education for national minorities in Romania) Pop L, Sandu D., Panduru F., Virdol A., Grigoras V., Duma V., Virdol D., Harta saraciei in Romania (The map of poverty in Romania), http://www.caspis.ro/downloads *** (2006), Romania - Ministerul Educatiei si Cercetarii - Invatamant in limbile minoritatilor (Romania – the Ministry for Education and Research – Education in the languages of minorities), http://www.edu.ro/mino.htm