Domestic Cases: Access to Education

11 August 2015

Albania

Segregation through social assistance

The ERRC is complaining about a school all of whose pupils are Roma or Egyptian. Although there are three schools in the catchment area, and the other two are racially integrated, poor parents from these minority communities have been induced to enrol their children in this school in order to secure social support (mainly food packages).

Avdyl Avdya

This is a segregated elementary school in a Roma settlement in Morave, Berat (Albania). The school is located in a Romani settlement, where it was built as an annex to another school, in whose catchment area the settlement is located, and which has only non-Roma children. The ERRC is pursuing complaints about the school in Albania.  After discovering that the recent refurbishment of the school was funded by the Czech Embassy in Tirana, we also started pursuing complaints in the Czech Republic, alleging that the Czech Embassy is funding school segregation abroad.

Czech Republic

Discrimination in enrolment in Ostrava

The ERRC is supporting Romani children and their families to make a discrimination claim against a school which refused to enrol them. The civil claim follows a successful administrative complaint which resulted in the decision not to enrol the children being quashed.

School segregation in Ostrava

The ERRC is supporting families of children to challenge school segregation in court. Despite Roma making up a minority in the school’s catchment area, virtually all of the pupils in school concerned are Roma. The school created a separate “annex” building in which non-Roma pupils are educated.

France

Segregation in Ris-Orangis

The ERRC is working with various French NGOs to challenge a municipality in the Paris region which dealt with a small influx of Romanian Roma pupils who enrolled in school by offering them instruction in a separate building apart from any school. In addition to supporting the families to pursue their case, the NGOs are taking proceedings in our own names to secure a finding of discrimination.

Hungary

Heves County

The ERRC and our partner, the Chance for Children Foundation, are taking actio popularis litigation claiming that Romani children are disproportionately over-represented in the special schools in the county and therefore are being discriminated against based on their ethnicity.

Serbia

Student of the Generation

In June 2011, a Romani student (one of the few Roma at his high school) was unfairly denied the "student of the generation" (valedictorian) award although he met the objective criteria for the award, having been the top pupil in his class The ERRC is supporting the Romani student in bringing a discrimination claim against the school authorities.

Slovakia

Misdiagnosis in Plavecky Stvrtok

A Roma child was misdiagnosed with an intellectual disability in 2005, which lead to him being transferred wrongly to a special class for children with “light mental disabilities". The ERRC is supporting him in challenging the discriminatory practice of misdiagnosing Roma children as having intellectual disabilities.

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