Step Aside, Pilsner! The Next Big Czech Export is School Segregation
16 March 2016
In the last couple of years we have increasingly focused our work in the Balkans. We are aware of millions of Roma in the region who can use our help in their fight against discrimination, and the EU accession process provides an opportunity to make a lasting change.
And we already know the consequences of missing that opportunity: school segregation of Roma abounds in many of the EU’s newer Member States – especially the Czech Republic, where Roma still languish in segregated classrooms eight years after the judgment in D.H. and others v Czech Republic exposed
While we were active in Albania in the past, we came to the country with fresh eyes in 2014. One of our first findings was that in Albania, Romani pupils are sometimes segregated in different schools and/or classes on the basis of their ethnicity. Although, officially, the inclusion of Roma is supported by laws and policies, the reality is different, as my colleague, Aurela Bozo, highlighted in her blog last year. Roma-only schools are (no surprise here) in much worse condition than those attended by pupils from the Albanian majority.
Our job is to support Roma in attacking these injustices, and we dove in. One of our targets was the Avdyl Avdia elementary school in Moravë, Berat. It is located in the Roma settlement. It is an annex to a larger school, not far away; you won’t be surprised to hear that all the pupils in the main school are non-Roma. The pupils in the segregated school are educated in five grades, but in only two classes. Pupils from the first and third grades are educated in one class and pupils from second, fourth, and fifth grades are educated in another. The fact that the Avdyl Avdia is a segregated school has been explicitly confirmed by the Regional School Authority in Berat. Until recent reconstruction, Avdyl Avdia had been in bad condition with a low level of hygiene.
Moravë is pronounced “Morava”, which is the name of a river in the Czech Republic. Maybe that’s how the place caught the attention of our old friends from Central Europe.
My colleague Aurela formulated a complaint about the school. In the process of her research, she found out that the school was being renovated. By the Czech Embassy. The founder of the school (Commune of Otlak) obtained a grant from the Embassy: about €18.000 to carry out the project called “Rehabilitation of the elementary school, kindergarten, health center and community center of the Roma community”.
The money granted was supposed to cover the costs of reconstruction. Not a bus to the non-Roma school. Just reconstruction of the segregated school. We think that this amounts to funding segregation abroad. And now we’re complaining to the Czech authorities about it.
We don’t know yet – and maybe we’ll never know – if this was intentional or negligent. I’m not sure which is worse. The Czech Republic receives a constant barrage of criticism from NGOs, human rights bodies, as well as the European Commission for ongoing school segregation on its own territory. It’s bad enough they haven’t learned thelessons from D.H.; now they’re sharing their homework with other countries. Hopefully Albania will realise before it’s too late that they’re copying off the paper of one of Europe’s worst pupils.
My grade on the Czech Republic’s newest export: F.
