REF’s work in Serbia featured in the New York Times

Keeping Roma Students in High School by Christopher F. Schuetze | July 7, 2013

Keeping Roma Students in High School by Christopher F. Schuetze | July 7, 2013

NOVI SAD, Serbia — Kosta Kuzmanovic’s wish is to be a radiologist in Australia. But the path is lined with hurdles for the 17-year-old Roma student from this dusty East European city, which still bears scars from wartime bombings in 1999.

As a member of one of Europe’s more disenfranchised minority groups, he may face financial, linguistic, bureaucratic and social barriers. If he does make it to an Australian university, it will be because of both his hard work and the Secondary Scholarship Program, run by the Roma Education Fund, a regional organization.

The program makes it possible for him to attend the Novi Sad Medical High School here, which offers counseling and financing for Roma students. “I have an opportunity, why wouldn’t I use it?” he said.

The Serbian government does not track how many Roma youth are in school. But the R.E.F. estimates that only one in three Roma students in Serbia even attempts to enroll in high school.

And while attendance is rising, it is still very low.

The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development’s Program for International Student Assessment, known as PISA, found that only 15 percent to 20 percent of Roma students made it to high school in Serbia in 2009. But that is still better than in 2004, when attendance was 8.3 percent.

To better address some of these issues, the R.E.F.’s Secondary Scholarship Program, which has traditionally relied on outside funding, is set to undergo a change this autumn when it is implemented nationwide under the Ministry of Education and financed with pre-accession E.U. funds. (Serbia is in the process of applying to become an E.U. member.)

The program offers scholarships from the primary to university levels and falls under the umbrella of the Decade of Roma Inclusion project, started by a dozen European countries in 2005.

“Education is just one part of the problem,” said Marius Taba, an officer with the R.E.F. in Budapest.

Also offered is a comprehensive program for high school students that includes counseling, tutoring and a monthly stipend of about €35, or $45, to help offset the cost of books, transportation and clean clothes, which are needed even at free public high schools.

“That’s pretty big money for this country,” said Mr. Kuzmanovic, the aspiring medical student.

While parents tend to rely on the stipend, students say that mentoring is the most important factor to their academic success.

Mentors are generally high school teachers who provide tutoring and personal support in less-than-welcoming environments. But because there are few Roma teachers in the Serbian school system, most come from non-Roma backgrounds.

“You can count the number of Roma teachers on one hand,” said Judit Szira, R.E.F.’s executive editor.

But their engagement with students and parents ensures their familiarity with the community.

Szezana Radisic, a local teacher, mentors seven Roma scholarship students at the Novi Sad Medical High School. She said her job was as much about keeping her students on track as it was about advocating for them among her colleagues.

“You have to solve an existing problem, not make a bigger problem out of it,” Ms. Radisic said.

Initially, other teachers were suspicious of what was seen as the Roma students’ special status; but eventually they learned to work with Ms. Radisic to accommodate them.

The R.E.F. believes that involving parents is an important part of preventing students from dropping out, Ms. Szira said. Special care is taken to have parents visit the schools. This often happens on weekends or after normal course hours because many Roma parents, who may not have had much formal education themselves, do not feel welcome in institutional settings.

“It is difficult, but also important, to speak to the parents,” Ms. Radisic said. “In the end, it’s about increasing the student’s ambitions.”

Since 2007, the R.E.F. has awarded 1,620 scholarships in Vojvodina Province, of which Novi Sad is the principle city. During the program’s first year, 52 scholarship students made it to a university; by 2010, that number rose to 134 recipients.

And while university admissions rates rose, high school dropout rates fell, from 7 percent in the 2007-8 school year to less than 3 percent in 2009-10.

The program tries to balance integrating Roma students with nurturing their sense of identity.

“There is no shame in being Roma,” said Jilijana Varga, a Roma student at the medical high school. Like other Roma students here, she said her family would not be able to afford to send her if it were not for the scholarship.

Many of Ms. Radisic’s students deal with adult stresses. They support their families financially, or care for sick or disabled parents as well as younger siblings.

But, while the program’s directors acknowledge these social problems, they also expect students to maintain a high academic standard, as scholarships are granted and renewed only on merit.

If grades slip below a certain level, or if there are too many unexplained absences from school, a student’s stipend can be removed, though there will still be access to a mentor.

“Not only do we want them to be in the school, we want them to be good students,” said Mr. Taba, the R.E.F. officer.

The full article can be access here.