Common Ground

An educational morass

The success of Roma students depends on parental support and teacher sensitivity

Kids in DomeËek. Photo by Alice Tejkalová.

By Alice Tejkalová and Israel Tockman
Prague 2007: Common Ground

There is a debate in the Czech Republic about whether the school system discriminates against Roma children. Charges of Roma kids being arbitrarily placed in special schools for the “mentally retarded” are countered with suggestions that Roma parents are not doing their part to make sure their children get a good education. In truth, more Roma children can be found in practical and special elementary schools than in regular elementary schools.

In the Czech Republic every child must have nine years of primary education before moving on to higher education. It is a punishable crime for parents not to send their children to school.  When a child starts having trouble learning and gets a few Fs on his report card, he might be placed in a practical or special elementary school, depending on the level of his learning disability. Special schools are for kids who usually have developmental disabilities.  Practical schools are for those who are just behind their classmates in the regular elementary schools.

‘Microphones Don’t Talk’

Visiting schools in the Czech Republic

By Israel Tockman
Prague 2007: Common Ground

The voices of students and the sounds of skis slapping the floor mingled in the gymnasium at Prague’s Practical Basic School on Vinohradská Street. A group of children clad in winter trekking gear shuffled about at the foot of a small stage. The kids were rehearsing for a performance of “The Voyage to the North Pole,” “written” by the invented Czech playwright Jára Cimrman. The drama teacher directed half of the kids to pretend to be microphones so that the actors could get comfortable using them and she arranged the group into two rows that faced each other. “Microphones don’t talk,” she said when the children began to chatter back-and-forth.

The bell rang and most of the kids disappeared. We were treated to a short concert by a Roma girl who sang “Killing Me Softly” by the Fugees while accompanied by a teacher with a guitar.  Her fine voice filled the room as she tapped her foot along with the tune.  Zuzana Fořtová, the school’s vice principal, said that the girl had missed a lot of school over the last year because of problems at home.

Inside a Roma Practical School

What students and educators say about Roma education

A mural by the entrance to the Museum of Roma Culture in Brno, Czech Republic.

By Sean Breslin
Prague 2007: Common Ground

When we visited the Základní škola praktická in Plzen, Martin and I had the chance to talk to two Roma students and a teacher about the educational opportunities for Roma. At the director’s insistence, we could not identify the children by name because he was concerned about releasing the names of minors to the press. The teacher, too, did not want to give her name to the media while discussing Roma education.

The children—a boy and a girl, both 13—looked forward to going into the food service industry, the boy as a chef or a waiter, and the girl at a candy shop or bakery (she likes sweets, she added). Both children said they felt confident that they are on their way to achieving those goals, and said they knew how important school was to success, though the boy added that he doesn’t get a lot of support at home.

The teacher said she knows her students are bright and sometimes capable of furthering their educations, but she believes the students receive little or no support from their families. The students wouldn't do their homework because the parents weren't making them do it, she said. Now, the school just doesn't assign homework.

Education is the key

Only better schooling can fix Roma economic situation

By Martin Brodsky
Prague 2007: Common Ground

Most inhabitants in the Czech Republic have strong negative feelings about Roma people. They see them as a group with incompatible lifestyle habits, unable to integrate. Czechs generally see the Roma population as a non-working community with high criminality, misusing the state social system. Is this generalization based on facts, or are nearly all the people in the Czech Republic racists?

Certainly we must be careful to avoid stereotyping. Not all people are the same. But the number of integrated and educated Roma is so low that there is some basis for that generalization.