What have they done?

Oršuš and desegregation in Međimurje County
Tom Bass
Budapest | May 15. 2013


Oršuš and desegregation in Međimurje County
Tom Bass
Budapest | May 15. 2013


 
Čakovec: The County Seat

Pressed between Slovenia and Hungary is a triangle of Croatian land surrounded by flood-prone river boundaries. Međimurje County is the northernmost, smallest and most densely populated Croatian county; it is home to approximately 120,000 people who work primarily in agriculture and also supply Western economies with migrant labor. According to a 2001 census, there are less than 3,000 Roma living in the county; the real number of Roma is estimated to be nearly 30,000.
 
At the county seat of Čakovec, the prefect and local school officials assure us they are doing their utmost to provide Romani children in the area with quality inclusive education. This willingness to change is only after much persuasion by REF in the aftermath of the county’s loss of face in the Oršuš case. Their “responsibility” is to create the preconditions for integration in primary school within the framework of a two-year REF-led project implemented by the county.

“We have to live together,” says the prefect, “We have to work with children, parents and the majority population.”

The plants and binders seem to nod in perfect harmony along with the lofty school and county officials. Do they really believe their schools to be islands of integration between the Mura and Drava rivers that hem in this region?

We ask the prefect to comment on the county’s motivation to start desegregating its schools as well as fulfilling the rights of young Romani children to quality inclusive early childhood education and care services. There’s a pause. Rather than mention the landmark decision that found the county guilty of discriminating against Romani children in 2010, we are soon ushered away and driven to the first of several locations where we will find our answers to what they have done.

Kuršanec: The New Center

Bands of snow are stuck to the fields in the lull between spring storms. We splash down county roads and round snowy villages until we split off the main road at Kuršanec. A half kilometer beyond the village, church spire still in sight, we arrive at our first destination, Kuršanec Family Center, a new community facility adjoining the Romani settlement – mud streets, thick wood smoke, frozen washing stuck to the impromptu fences, and everyone observing our car parking on the grounds of the new center.

A group of Romani parents greet us inside; their children play in two classrooms across the hall. In the presence of the eavesdropping officials, the mums and dads assure us they are satisfied with the new family center and the preschool preparation their children receive; indeed, knowing how to read and how to speak Croatian are real achievements for the children of parents who often did not complete primary school.

It leaks out that things are not quite so rosy, especially when it comes to employment, with few chances for any job more sustainable than casual labor in the agricultural sector.

One father says, “For them, we aren’t Roma, we’re Gypsies.”

Apparently, that’s enough in Međimurje to guarantee discrimination in the labor market and to qualify every other kind of injustice and lack of public service – so much so that one mother claims that a better preschool in another locality demanded payment to enroll her child when absolutely no payment is necessary.

The officials point at their watches, declare the meeting over, and hustle us into the two classrooms. Lunch already has been served from the kitchen on the premises and the children are playing inside. One room is engaged with clusters of children working with tape, scissors, yarn, paper and glue – on the walls, series of snowmen and bunnies. In the adjoining classroom they’ve set up a store with a till and groceries. They’re acting with dolls or learning in groups with an assistant teacher. The children appear well cared for and the school appears to be comfy and cozy, with all the necessary amenities. But despite the proliferation of toys and learning tools, and the cordial atmosphere, no majority children from the village are enrolled; they’ve got their own school in the village and they are not attending. The teachers and officials smile together, satisfied.

When these Romani pupils grow up to walk down the potholed road toward the village’s church spire and take their places in what should be an integrated village preschool, they just might have the skills to learn and excel – if, as agreed, they will let them in. Dare you scratch behind the surface here, and you’ll find complicit judgments and raw opinions. And without more supervision, more commitment, more persuasion, and an incremental building of trust and partnerships, the investments made now will more likely end up in the pockets of the public school administration while former pupils are left to cut firewood from the forest along the road.

Mursko Središće: Our Dream in Action

We zigzag across the county to Mursko Središće, a small town huddled against Slovenia. The school is just seconds away from the border post, from Schengen, the EU and prosperity. Built before the First World War, perched on a small rise just across from the municipal market and beyond the reach of the angry river, the Maslačak (Dandelion) kindergarten is housed in an elegant building of large rooms and high ceilings.

REF’s Country Facilitator Biserka Tomljenović issues a short brief: “This is a great example of cooperation between the local community, REF, the county and the ministry; here, all children from the Roma community are integrated fully into the city kindergarten from 2007. The city is paying for half of the price of preschool education and the other part is paid by the ministry and REF pays for the transportation.”

We’re ushered inside and the school is teeming with a mixture of Romani and non-Romani children. They’re in the halls, in the bathrooms, on the staircase and in the classrooms, which are well-furnished and brimming with the children’s creative output.

With 33 Romani and 60 non-Romani pupils, Mursko Središće’s school is what REF speaks about when it advocates for integration and equality in education. And like all cases where improvements have been made, this hinges on local initiative and will, here embodied in the school principal, Radmila Baljak, a former refugee from the Balkan Wars (popularly known in Croatia as the Homeland War), who wanted to make a difference in her adopted home town.

We huddle together with more staff in the teacher’s lounge. The circle is joined by Milorad Mihanovic, an elected representative of the Roma National Council in Croatia, whose children also have attended school here. “She was the only teacher who loved us Roma,” says Mihanovic, nodding at Ms. Baljak who then explains her motivations for leading the integration of the town’s preschool: “In the first month of the first year the situation was very sensitive with the majority parents; the first two months we kept the children apart in the same building, we must admit, but after we put them together. Since then it’s been getting better and better each year. In the first year we started with 15 children, although there were more of them officially on the list but their attendance was unsure, and now this has improved as well. We’re making great progress and the parents know that.”

It hasn’t always been that easy, as Međimurje County is prone to outbursts from angry majority parents – as we will hear about later that day.

Vice-principal Spomenka Cilar adds, “The majority parents put a lot of pressure on us. Some parents took their children away and enrolled them in a private kindergarten. But they began to change their minds at the moment when the children, who were involved in the preschool here, were enrolled in the primary school. When the non-Romani parents saw the difference, how this works better, how there were no problems like they had previously, then they started to see it as a benefit for them, too. The city mayor and the cooperation of the county school officials were also crucial.”
 
Meanwhile in the classrooms, it’s clear why teachers wear aprons. Romani and non-Romani children set together painting and decorating cups at the low tables or playing hide and seek. Evidence of their learning is everywhere, whirligigs and mobiles dangling from the ceiling, anatomy lessons and alphabet worms pasted to the walls, activity charts recording each child’s name and progress, and photographs of school events in fancy dress.

Anasztazia Nagy from REF comments amid the busy class, “This location is among our best practices because all the Roma and non-Roma children are educated together here in the preschool. What is also very important is that the children are going on to the integrated primary school. They are not dropping out but continuing their studies.”

Pribislavec: Coping with Change

A few kilometers across the fields from Čakovec is the village of Pribislavec, home to a prominent Neo-gothic castle. The tower casts a shadow over town hall, where two representatives of the local Romani community are waiting. We walk upstairs to the unheated hall decorated with survey maps. Here in Pribislavec, Romani children are bussed daily from the settlement to the village preschool and back. The preschool classroom is on the ground floor of the town hall, a storefront piled high with stuffed toys, the street chiming with the overflow of children’s voices.

Kristijan Balog is president of the Association of Young Roma of Croatia. Dressed in a flight jacket, bearded and wearing a clunky chrome watch, he says, “The education system today is completely different from what I was part of. We had no free transportation to school, the standards were much lower.”

“I have two small children who are going to an integrated kindergarten, a private one here in the village. I want to ensure for my children what my parents ensured for me, primary and secondary education.

“When I speak of preschool education, I fully support it, because I see it as a first step that children must do in order to get at least hygienic habits because they do not have these conditions at home, the basic stuff.

What comes next is a surprise.

“I think it would be good for the preschool programs to take place in the Romani settlement. I know that the results are achieved here as well, but that better results would be achieved there. I think it would be more rational economically to have it in the Roma settlement and use the funds for transportation for other things like meals.

We try to counter that if the settlement has few if any public services, then by default educational services will also be lackluster. We advise that integration does not equal segregation in the Romani community, but he persists. 

Kristijan says, “The same staff from here would work there. If we were to compare, since integration is an ideal situation that we cannot achieve overnight, and this group of preschool children is getting preschool or preparatory preschool education, in a way that there are only Romani children anyway, so it is a Roma-only group of preschoolers in the municipality building. I see no difference here. My opinion is that the costs would be lower if the school would be in the Roma settlement. Full integration is a completely different issue.”

We’re puzzled. REF’s entire existence is based on eliminating the geographical and physical isolation of Romani communities from mainstream schools. Does his colleague also insist on children staying put?   

Biserko Horvat is a member of several Roma councils on the national and county level. He says, “I believe that the results would be much better if we would have a facility in the settlement for these purposes. In the long-term it would be better; the children now are in a provisional setting, it’s temporary, the current location here in the municipal space is not meant for a preschool education. My proposition is to use the funds from bussing to construct a building in a settlement.”

Things get even more confusing as the meeting goes on.

Juggling his biro, Kristijan says, “I enrolled my child in the nursery when he was just ten months old. So I’m preparing a future. My motto and my wish is to educate them and make it possible for them to go the highest level of education. Although I’m already of a parent, I’m also thinking of my own education. The long-term goal for me and my children is full integration into society. I want to show to the majority that although one may be Roma, that does not necessarily mean our heads are empty and we can achieve nothing. My daughter is six and I’m investing a lot in her education. I’m paying for gymnastic lessons, music lessons, and I would like that all parents would be like that, that they would focus their efforts and attention towards directing them towards some goal in life.”

Biserko adds, “This can be achieved only if we will manage to really also focus on the parents, for the parents to assume the responsibility for their children. I agree with Kristijan that our people got used to getting things for nothing. Now you give them a bus. Tomorrow they will ask for the teacher to come to their home.”

Kristijan wants to reassure us. He says, “It may seem that we are against our own people. This isn’t true, we just see that the path we have taken, assuming responsibility as parents, directing our efforts that our children finish their education, and that all other parents should do as well, this is good for Roma, this will benefit the whole community.”

According to REF’s experiences, having a local Roma school is a common and contradictory demand from many communities and REF treads a fine line when deciding to work with a community and how to meet its needs.

Until education systems reform, Romani schools in Romani settlements are going to stay Romani schools with inferior services and curricula. Virtually no majority parents will allow their children to attend Romani schools and would rather enroll them somewhere else; nor do they understand the benefit to their children learning in a multicultural environment in mainstream schools – as we will see at the next stop.

So far, no state has genuinely implemented such a program, and even the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights cannot persuade politicians held hostage by their constituents to act. What usually follows: lip service to the language of democracy, foot dragging in the halls of power and no commitment on the ground, budgetary, educational, or otherwise. Meanwhile, Romani children face poor attendance, lower curriculum, missing early childhood development goals, malnutrition, segregated schools or classrooms, culturally biased entry tests for schooling, a high risk of dropping out, and general exclusion from school life.

Standing outside the storefront that serves as a preschool, Elvis Kralj, who works as a local monitor for the European Roma Rights Centre, comments outside. He says, “The Oršuš problem started 20 years ago when Romani children in larger numbers started to go to school; because there were so many, there was not enough space to put them together in classrooms with Croatian children, so they were put in separate classes only for Roma. This created a massive problem and Roma NGOs disagreed: they thought there were enough places to include Romani children in normal classes.”

Such grievances were the basis of the Oršuš case that originated in Međimurje County and the basis on which Croatia was found guilty of discriminating against Romani children. The question is how much the practice still in use, even with county school officials apparently determined to end the practice.

Gornji Hrašćan: The Spark

The site of spontaneous protests by disgruntled non-Romani parents at the start of the 2012 school year, the preschool at Gornji Hrašćan is a stone’s throw from the road.

Biserka Tomljenović describes the conflict: “The preschool start was delayed for two days, two very difficult days, but finally an agreement was made with the non-Roma parents. The protests were organized and the children were not allowed to enter the school. The entire road was blocked, the police were here, and it was a really tough incident this school year, but a lot of effort was made by the county school official, the principal and the county prefect.”

The majority’s grievances have been driven by the economic crisis and the perceived inequality in social benefits, along with objections to the “Roma lifestyle,” leading to what is now the third public incident in Međimurje County against Roma integration. 

In a statement on September 17, 2012, REF reiterated its support for Romani children fulfilling their right to attend the school, writing:

We are deeply saddened by the fact that the first day of preschool the first contact for 51 Roma children with the Croatian educational system which they awaited with excitement and joy, ended up by them meeting 40 angry adults who blocked the entrance into the primary school in Hrašće clearly expressing: You are not welcome here! […]
[W]e would like to express our strong will to continue supporting all eforts directed towards creating possibilities for Roma children to access quality education through cooperation with all stakeholders. In this aspect, and since opposition to Roma enrollment or residence is not first of such kind in Međimurje County, nor in Croatia, we would like to urge all the State and regional, as well as local autorities to increase their efforts in working with local and international partners to find ways how to work more intensively on raising the awareness of the majority population in Croatia of the issues of discrimination against Roma […]

After reaching a compromise in September, the school now works in two shifts, the morning for non-Romani children attending primary school and the afternoon shift of mostly Romani children. The building, drab and featureless, looks in need of renovation. Inside cheerful children are queuing to wash their hands before their afternoon snack. In another room they’re squeezing one by one into a cardboard house or leafing through photo albums. The shelves are stacked with Duplo blocks, the walls are covered in their vivid pictures – a ghost, a devil, a clown, a troubadour. 

The pedagogue says, “This is the third year of implementation of preschool program at our school. This year we have 52 preschool pupils, 44 Romani children and 8 Croatian children. They are divided into three groups and start the afternoon at 1 PM. In the morning it is a primary school. There is only one preschool in this municipality and it is too small to receive all the children in need.”

She adds more about the background to the protest, revealing what the conflict boils down to. She says, “The municipality of Trnovec to which this settlement belongs is angered by the fact that the Roma did not pay their communal expenses to take out the garbage. Huge efforts were made by the municipality to raise the funds to remove the garbage. These settlements were within the EU urbanization program, and the settlement’s infrastructure was improved, and electricity was brought in, and it was assumed that the communal fees would be paid. This conflict about the garbage adds to the entire thing. It is interconnected. The relationship of the majority towards the Roma is not positive and at a very low level. In the long-term, I don’t know if we have some solution without really large investments of money continuously.”

But that’s not all: “Many young Croatian parents are not working, they lost their jobs and they’re living off a few thousand kuna per month, but the state gives very high amounts to the Roma every month and they are not working at all. This is one thing that causes conflict.”

Biserka clarifies the complaint. She adds, “According to the Law on Social Welfare, the personal allowance is 600 kuna, which is less than 100 Euro, but for each family member 400 kuna is added. You get an additional 200 kuna per child. And wood. For Roma and non-Roma social benefits are the same. If you have no job, no additional income in the family, no pension, you get the same benefits. So this is what is within the law. Additional funds can be added by the local and regional government. Međimurje is a region known for people who are very diligent, who want to work for their money, and a lot of non-Roma are ashamed to ask for social benefits.”

We uncover is a complex story, a protest like any other, its main message supposedly about Romani pupils dumbing down the majority in class, but with another subliminal message in the background, a mixture of envy and entitlement, of disenfranchisement and dispossession, as majority membership is no longer a guarantee in the tough economic realities of today. Indeed, we could point to the general trend across the region, where the transition has been no more refreshing than a hangover, where democracy has been applied unevenly and disingenuously, and where the layers of historical injustice and national trauma have refused to go away, being a handy political tool for the elites enriching themselves under the guise of a national mandate. And in the midst of the rhetorical quicksand wait the scapegoats wondering if they’ll sink or swim.     

No one speaks of this, and why would they, if they can claim they are making steps to change the situation.   

The school principal Božena Dogša wants us to look on the bright side. She says, “There is no single child [from Parag] who does not attend preschool program. Everyone aged six to seven is here. They are coming regularly by bus. The parents are very satisfied. […] We organize workshops with the parents in cooperation with ISSA [International Step by Step Association], so we are teaching parents how to be responsible, how to raise their child in a proactive way, and how to work with their children to achieve some skills. So when we compare the situation with ten years ago, it has improved a lot. Two groups come once a week. And four trainers from school, too. We have one group when all the parents are together, Roma and non-Roma. Despite the differences between them, they’re cooperating, they are exchanging their parenting and life experiences, even recipes.”

When asked if there is any progress, one of the school officials encapsulates the state of affairs better than anyone, “Ten years ago we had no problem because children did not go to school. Now we have them in school.”

Maybe so, but by the meeting’s close, no miracle changes the mood from defensive to cooperative; we’re shepherded down the steps and wave adieu, but not without a last word: “We expect protests here next year. It is too soon, it takes time.”

Parag: The Bus Stop

We pass the controversial mounds of garbage and splash through the puddles. We stand a few hundred meters from the Slovene border on the elevated surface of the community bus stop. We’re not encouraged to go any deeper into Parag, itself prone to flooding when the nearby Drava breaks its banks. The cold wind bites at our faces.

A group of Romani parents stand in a half-circle around us. Children, parents and elders crowd together. Why are these people here? Who has sent them?

Two older men dressed in plaid and leather jackets lead the discussion. There’s no request for a community center here, just assurances that their children are going to school. It’s disconcerting, stranded on the bus stop. Who assumed we were afraid to enter the settlement?

This is as far as we’re allowed and we make do. Lots of nodding and laughter accompany our exchange, as if everything is perfectly fine, but reality betrays that it’s not.

Later, once we’ve been hustled into the school official’s favorite hunting lodge for a meal in Čakovec, one begins to get a sense of the scale of what needs to be changed for all Romani children to have access to inclusive, quality education: from the entire Romani population of Međimurje, only two Roma are university graduates, one of whom is unemployed, and only one Roma is currently attending university.

For them, it’s a choice, good will, altruism; for us, we have no other choice but to wrangle concessions in the courts and in the classroom if Romani children are to fulfill their rights to inclusive, quality education.

Croatian Preschools at a Glance

Kindergarten is not compulsory. However, education from age 6 to 15 is free and compulsory and spans eight grades.
Preschool education encompasses education and childcare for children ages six months to six years (school age). It is realized through educational, health, nutritional, and social care programs. 

An estimated 99.6 percent of children were enrolled in preschool education programs during the 2009–10 school year, both as part of regular nursery programs and pre-school programs in the year before primary school.

According to the Ministry of Education’s website, 151,514 children are currently attending kindergarten. 122,194 children attend city/municipal/county kindergartens, the rest in private facilities.

There are 435 city/municipal/county kindergartens in Croatia and 175 private kindergartens; 10,021 education employees work in kindergartens in Croatia.

Each class may have one parent on the school governing body.

Reading does not exist as a separate subject in Croatia’s school curriculum; it is part of Croatian language and literature which is taught through both elementary and secondary levels. Croatian language as a subject includes four underlying components: Croatian language, literature, linguistic expression, and media culture.

Sources: PIRLS 2011 Encyclopedia Volume 1: A–K, Education Policy and Curriculum in Reading, available online: http://timssandpirls.bc.edu/pirls2011/downloads/PIRLS2011_Enc-v1.pdf; Ministry of Science, Education and Sports, available online: http://public.mzos.hr/Default.aspx?sec=2498 

Legal Background

Oršuš involved 14 children attending mainstream primary schools in three villages in Međimurje County, Croatia, and who were placed in segregated Roma-only classes due to alleged language difficulties. The applicants argued that placement in these Roma-only classes stemmed from blatant discrimination based on ethnicity. The schools’ policies were reinforced by the local majority population’s anti-Romani sentiments. Represented by the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC), the Croatian Helsinki Committee, and local attorney Lovorka Kusan, the case went to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in 2004. After a negative judgment in 2008, it reached the Grand Chamber upon appeal.
On 16 March 2010, the court delivered its judgment, finding a violation of Article 6, unanimously, and a violation of Article 14 of ECtHR read in conjunction with Article 2 of Protocol No. 1, by nine votes to eight. The majority has considered that the schooling arrangements for Roma children were not sufficiently attended by safeguards that would ensure that, in the exercise of its margin of appreciation in the education sphere, the State had sufficient regard to their special needs as members of a disadvantaged group and as a result of the arrangements the applicants were placed in separate classes where an adapted curriculum was followed, though its exact content remains unclear. Owing to the lack of transparency and clear criteria as regards transfer to mixed classes, the applicants stayed in Roma-only classes for substantial periods of time, sometimes even during their entire primary schooling (Para. 182).

According to ERRC evaluation after a visit to Croatia in June 2010, “The situation for applicants in the Oršuš case themselves is little improved and they have been reportedly threatened with the possibility of having their social benefits cut because of their damages award. The only positive development was an initiative coming from the directors of the primary schools at the heart of the case which asked Međimurje county authorities and the Ministry of Education to introduce three-year, free of charge pre-school programmes for Romani children to help these children to overcome language barriers before beginning their primary education.”

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Or%C5%A1u%C5%A1_and_Others_v._Croatia; http://www.errc.org/article/europes-highest-court-rules-roma-school-segregation-by-language-illegal/3569; http://www.errc.org/cikk.php?page=10&cikk=3613