Access to education for disadvantaged groups Multiannual programme

1. ROMANIA THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND RESEARCH Access to education for disadvantaged groups Multiannual programme

2. Roma registers the highest rateof pre-school and school non-attendance and school abandon. The causes are multiple, and often conjugated, limiting the access to quality education

3. PRESENTATION OF Romanian PHARE Programme “Access to education for disadvantaged groups” The overall objective of the project is to fight against marginalisation and social exclusion by improving access to education for disadvantaged groups, with a special focus on Roma and the project purpose is: • to increase the availability and improve the conditions of pre-school education to stimulate early enrolment • to stimulate that children finalise compulsory education (prevention of dropout); • to provide second chance education for persons who did not complete their compulsory education (correction of dropout).

4. Through the MER notification no. 29323/20.04.2004, the school inspectorates were required to analyse the specific situation in all the schools in which the percentage of Roma children compared with non-Roma shows a great disproportion with the percentage of Roma children in the total school age population from the area.

5. The school inspectorates have to initiate an action plan that aims at eradication of segregation. The measures proposed are to be adapted to each situation and will take into consideration the fact that the desegregation process is a difficult one. This plan will include – but will not limit itself at – measures such as: • establishment of heterogenic classes for pupils at all levels of education; • assuring transportation for Roma pupils to school with another ethnic majority, especially for children from territorial segregated areas;

6. common utilisation of existing school spaces and facilities; • training and hiring Roma school mediators; • offering supplementary teaching hours, as remedial action for children who have difficulties in learning; • promoting the ethnic identity of Roma in heterogenic schools, including through curriculum development; • involve Roma educational staff in schools in order to assure teaching of the specific curricula (Romani language, history and traditions of Roma);

7. training the educational staff in inclusive education, in order to assure a proper educational climate for a multiethnic environment; • facilitating the transfer of pupils, as a measure aiming at balancing the Roma and non-Roma proportion in a school; • raising awareness of the Roma communities regarding the quality of education in heterogenic schools and involving the parents in the decisional process at school level; • raising awareness of all parents regarding the benefits of inclusive educations, in order to discourage those that demand the enrolling of their children in classes with no Roma or the establishment of separate classes for Roma pupils.

8. ROMANIA THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND RESEARCH Development of the institutional capacity of the County School Inspectorates and of the schools in order to improve the access to education for disadvantaged groups SPECIFIC activities: • Training/ facilitation and support materials for the elaboration, under the co-ordination of School Inspectorates, in partnership with stakeholders, of County strategies for improving access to education for disadvantaged groups • Guidelines and working instruments for the establishment of functional Steering Committees at the county level to support the implementation of project/strategy related activities

9. ROMANIA THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND RESEARCH • Teacher’s guides on inclusive school, active learning methods, support for adults learning, school based curriculum, management of change, community participation, individual learning methods • Demonstrative tapes to support training for each area mentioned above • at least 10 teacher trainers trained for each pilot county

10. ROMANIA THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND RESEARCH • 96 school mediators, from 12 participating counties, • ODL/reduced frequency for Roma primary school teachers • second chance programme at the primary and lower secondary education

11. ROMANIA THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND RESEARCH • Educational materials for a) pre-school, primary schools, remedial programmes, after school education programmes for students, books, educational games and tapes for children, etc. b) for parents: leaflets, posters etc. • Assessment on essential issues, like contagious diseases, child exploitation etc. which have a negative effect on school participation and desegregation

12. ROMANIA THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND RESEARCH • Guidelines/instruments and monitoring reports regarding the establishment and functioning of school support groups for each community participating in the project, with the involvement/ facilitation of the school mediators. • Assessment of the segregation cases (according to the definition of the MER notification nr. 29323 from 2004) at the level of each participating county

13. Recommendations for desegregation plans for each caseMonitoring and evaluation system for desegregation plan Guidelines and monitoring reports regarding the establishment of functional resources centres for inclusive education