Government education policies

preparation of Roma children for enrolment into grade 1”, the Plan addresses the training of teaching assistants, and the desegregation of Roma pre-schools.

pedagogical practices, they presumably should be an integral part of the “supporting environment”. However, the Government has passed no regulations regarding the State educational standards in that regard.

On 29 June 2006, the Council of Ministers adopted an Action Plan for Implementing the Framework Programme.⁹³ The section on education in this document stresses measures to prevent dropping out, qualification of pedagogical personnel, study of a mother tongue, reduction of special schools and professional education. In line with the National Programme, however, it again does not mention desegregation and does not envisage measures in that regard.

The Government has also introduced three types of measures to reduce dropping out of the education system for children from low-income families:

• Progressive offering of free textbooks. All students from the one-year obligatory pre-school and grades one to four are at present eligible to receive free manuals.⁹⁴

• Covering transport costs and providing boarding. All children who do not have schools in their place of residence are eligible to have their costs for transport covered to the “hub” school where they are enrolled. Alternatively, they should be provided with boarding at that school.⁹⁵ These provisions, however, do not envisage covering the transport costs of students when they enrol in mainstream schools in the city, but only cover the costs for travel between cities and villages.

• Offering social security benefits to cover pre-school taxes, food in the schools and school supplies.⁹⁶

On 25 February 2005, Parliament adopted the National Programme for Broadening the Participation of Children of Compulsory Age in School.⁹⁷ It envisages three modules:

93 Government of Bulgaria, План за действие за изпълнение на Рамковата програма за равноправноинтегрираненаромитевбългарскотообществоза 2006 г. (Action Plan for the Implementation of the Framework Programme for the Equal Integration of Roma in Bulgarian Society), adopted on 29 June 2006, available at http://www.nccedi.government.bg (accessed on 23 February 2007).

94 The measure has been fully in effect since April 2005 with the amendments of Decree No. 104 of the Council of Ministers for the adoption of an Ordinance for the Textbooks and School Manuals, Official Gazette, No. 34, 19 April 2005.

95 Rules and Regulations for the Application of the National Education Act, Art. 37, para. 7. The measure has been in effect since March 2003.

96 Council of Ministers, Rules and Regulations for the Application of the Social Assistance Act, Official Gazette, No. 133, 11 November 1998, with many amendments, the last one from 23 December 2005.

97 National Assembly, Националнапрограма заобхващанена учениците взадължителна училищна възраст (National Programme for Broadening the Participation of Children of Compulsory Age in School), adopted by Parliament on 25 February 2005.

ensuring free textbooks and school supplies for students from the first to the fourth grade, reducing the network of schools by closing existing schools in small villages and offering bussing for students up to 16 years of age to “hub” schools, and supplying one free meal for all the students from the first to the fourth grade. In May 2006 Parliament updated this plan. According to a report by the Ministry of Education and Science from 2 September 2005, by that date the State budget had secured 15,390,000 levs (€7,892,307) to implement that programme. This money was used to buy 219 school buses to provide transport to “hub” schools. According to the Ministry, however, there is a need for at least twice as many.⁹⁸ According to a later report of the Ministry, the buses served 13,140 students from 134 municipalities and 219 schools.⁹⁹ Another important policy document for Bulgaria that recognises school segregation of Roma is the Strategy for Educational Integration of Children and Pupils from Ethnic Minorities,¹⁰⁰ adopted by the Ministry of Education and Science on 11 June 2004 (see section 3.3).

Since its inception in 2005 the Roma Education Fund has financed several projects in Bulgaria, many of which are co-funded and implemented by the Government. These projects are mentioned in the relevant sections below to which they pertain.

Bulgarian legislation on the study and the use of minority language is restrictive and discriminatory in two important aspects. It guarantees the right to study one’s mother tongue, but not the right to receive education in it. In addition, minority students (many of them Roma) in remedial schools for children with intellectual disabilities and schools for children with behavioural challenges are denied the possibility to study their own language, in a clearly unconstitutional and discriminatory way.

Council of Minister’s Decree No. 183/1994 provides for a mother tongue to be studied as a “free elective subject” within the general curriculum for the basic school (first to eighth grades).¹⁰¹ This means that the students do not receive any grades and the subject does not contribute to the cumulative assessment for completion of the basic educational level. Another problem with this decree is that it restricts the right of secondary students to study their mother tongue, in contradiction to the National Education Act, which guarantees this right to all the students. In 1999, with the adoption of the Law for the Degree of Education, the General Education Minimum and the Education Plan, study of the mother tongue became an “obligatory elective”

98 The report is available in Bulgarian at

http://kei.parliament.bg/?page=plSt&lng=bg&SType=show&id=8 (accessed on 14 March 2006).

99 Minutes of the meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on Education and Science from 10 May 2006, adopted on 11 June 2004, available at http://www.parliament.bg.

100 MES, Strategy for Educational Integration of Children and Pupils from Ethnic Minorities.

101 Council of Ministers, Decree No.183 on the Study of Mother Tongue in the Municipal Schools in Bulgaria from 5 September 1994, Official Gazette, No.73, 9 September 1994.

subject,¹⁰² which is offered in addition to the compulsory curriculum on students’ or parents’ choices, within regular school hours, and students receive grades on it both during and at the end of the year. The grade contributes to the students’ annual cumulative assessment.¹⁰³ Making mother-tongue study an obligatory elective subject allowed secondary school students to study it as well. The 1999 law repeals the provision of Decree 183/1994 for free elective mother-tongue study by requiring that it becomes “obligatory elective”. Decree 183/1994, however, was not repealed entirely, as it has some provisions that are still in force.

Romanes has been recognised as a mother tongue, one that can be taught as such in the municipal basic schools, since the adoption of the National Education Act in 1991. At present Romanes as a mother tongue in Bulgaria can be studied as an “obligatory elective” subject in the national education system if there are 11 students to form a group for three hours per week in the first grade and between the fifth and the eighth grade, and for two hours per week between the second and the fourth grade (groups can be from one class or mixed, from different classes).¹⁰⁴ Its teaching, however, has never been organised to reach a significant share of the Roma population, and has declined in recent years.

There have been no evaluations of any governmental programmes with regard to their effect on Roma specifically. Case studies at the local level indicate that awareness of these programmes is good, but their impact has been limited. Local journalists in Vidin, for example, are aware of the Strategy for the Educational Integration of Children and Students from Ethnic Minorities, and the Decade Action Plan, but do not know of any specific governmental and local public policies for direct involvement in the desegregation of Roma education. School directors also confirmed that there are no such programmes functioning at the school level. There are a few examples of national programmes that have been introduced to schools in Vidin, but these do not have a direct linkage to the development of an integrated school environment. The opening of a new study for informatics under the programme “e-class” or courses for computer literacy were mentioned as examples by two school directors, as was the transport of Roma children to schools from one village to another village, mentioned by the deputy mayor of Vidin Municipality.¹⁰⁵

102 Law for the Degree of Education, the General Education Minimum, and the Education Plan, Official Gazette, No.67, 27 July 1999, the latest amendment from 14 May 2004, Art. 15, para. 3 (hereafter, Law for the Degree of Education, the General Education Minimum, and the Education Plan).

103 Rules and Regulations for the Application of the National Education Act, Art.111, para.1.

104 Ministry of Education and Science, Ordinance No.7 on the Number of Students and Children in School and Kindergarten Classes, Official Gazette, No.4 , 12 January 2001, the latest amendment from 3 October 2003, Art.26.

105 Case study Vidin.

These research findings on the local level suggest a very loose connection between national documents and policies, on the one hand, and local concrete measures taken by the school staff or local authorities under the aegis of national or international initiatives in which Bulgaria takes part, on the other. One weak point of the governmental programmes aiming to improve the education of Roma is the lack of any elaborated mechanism for monitoring and evaluation. This structural weakness of governmental educational policies raises, in turn, serious questions about the efficiency of these programmes as well as about their potential for development and replication.

Delays in implementation after policy documents have been elaborated and disseminated risk further decreasing Government credibility in the field of education for Roma.