“I expect various negative reactions from the European Union to the introduction of boarding schools for Roma children in Slovakia,” said Prime Minister Robert Fico on March 8, as quoted by the TASR, after carrying out a review of the Office of the Deputy Premier for a Knowledge-based Society, European Affairs, Human Rights and Minorities, headed by Dušan Čaplovič.
According to Fico, Slovakia has two options when it comes to its Roma minority. First, it can leave everything as it is but this would create a group of several thousand in Slovakia with little chance of breaking through into society. The second option is to educate young Roma at boarding schools. He continued this is a very complicated issue and the future government will have to take a much more decisive stance on it than has been the case so far.
Čaplovič added that various representatives of the European Commission and the Council of Europe have expressed understanding with the plan during discussions, realising that this has become a problem for the whole EU when Slovakia joined in 2004. Some Roma communities support the idea of boarding schools, Fico said, stressing that children would be educated in such institutions only with the approval of their parents. TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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