Education Return to Education section list European Education - Why Central Europe is bad news - Part 1 THE IMPACT OF SPECIAL SCHOOLS ON THE ROMA IN CENTRAL EUROPE,  A case of wilful criminal neglect & professional incompetence Sources: see footnote ECRE-European Committee on Romani Emancipation undertook a field investigation of the Special Schools in Central Europe, during 2001-2003. This was to analyse how they work and assess their impact on the Roma, Central European society and the Central European economy. In June 2000, ECRE's Annual report stated that the Special schools were unacceptable. The main issues raised were: their discriminatory nature the lack of, and therefore need for, Roma parental choice in the schooling of their children inadequate to useless quality of "education" the need for an integrated education the apparent lack of transparency in the use of Special school funds In 2001, the Management Committee of ECRE decided to investigate this matter further and to undertake a more comprehensive analysis of each of the above points . The purpose was to prepare a proposal for an action plan for de-segregation of schools as a basis for compliance with European Union law. This work was initiated in February, 2001 and was undertaken in close collaboration with Roma. It took some time to complete because of a conspiracy of evasion on the part of officials as well as enforced silence on the part of Roma families. However, the work advanced slowly and in the end ECRE succeeded in uncovering what must be the worst case of racial discrimination motivated by financial greed that exists in Europe today. This report series provides details of ECRE's findings. THE SPECIAL SCHOOLS Background The origin of Special Schools During the Third Reich the Nazis set up special schools based upon two scientific frauds. Fraud number one was that children of minority groups, such as Roma, were mentally deficient. As part of their racial discriminatory creed, the Nazis placed Roma children into "special schools". This whole process was a source of income for those managing the schools, who were normally committed racists. A large number of hangers-on surrounded the special schools such as psychologists, doctors, anthropologists and educationalists. These people served to provide unscientific evidence, on a continual basis, to justify why such children should be in such "schools". In some schools they carried out cruel and macabre physical experiments which, in many cases, resulted in the deaths of the children. All concerned made a good income out of this activity. Essentially such schools made up part of the "Gypsy business" component of the Nazi slave labour camps, concentration camps and other gruesome activities used in some cases to support private corporations manufacturing or providing services for the state. Fraud number two was the elaborate pseudo science created by the educational psychologists to "prove" that such children should only remain under such conditions. For example these people used the fact that if a small child could not speak, or write, German, as a basis for "classifying" them as mentally deficient or feeble-minded. A basic trick was to apply tests which involved the child doing something for the first time, like holding a pencil, and using clumsiness as a basis for negative clasisfication. This of course provided "official" justification for keeping such children in the Special school. So the system helped fabricate "qualitative" measures which were used as a basis for confirming, by the Nazis, a scientific "foundation" of "credibility" for their beliefs. The success of this process rested particularly on the willingness of "professionals", such as perverted "educational" psychologists, who of course, earned their incomes by feeding such prejudices to the State. In basic terms the special schools had three aims. to segregate Roma children from the mainstream children to deny them an education provide a generous source of money and/or status for those charged with "managing" the schools Although the Special Schools of the Nazi era (see box) seem to have been closed at the end of the War in 1945, the Communists established another system (which unfortunately used the same name, "special schools") geared to addressing the needs of children with learning difficulties. Central government funded the increased didactic equipment and teacher time required according to requests from local authorities. Unfortunately, in the early period, statistics on the historic development of numbers of children classified as "special" under this system, and the fund transfers, are not readily available. Feedback from older individuals is that they were not generally aware of the existance of special schools in rural regions and thought that perhaps these were more specifically associated with urban centres. During the 1960s and 1970s a significant part of the education of Roma children was undertaken in church schools. These provided rudimentary education considered sufficient for a situation of full employment and a pre-defined role of Roma as manual and unskilled workers. The quality of education received in the church schools varied according to the sense of vocation and the teaching skills of the teachers involved. For this period ECRE did not uncover any evidence of association of Roma children with Special schools. NUMBERS - EXPECTATIONS AND REALITY Normal expectations of numbers Educators and psychologists have determined that the normal percentage of educationally subnormal children, within any particular group, can be expected to be something of the order of 2%-3%. It would seem that during the period pre-1969 through 1970s, from verbal reports, the numbers of children attending Special schools following the time of their initiation, was around 2.5% of the school population. The percentage of Roma children within the Special school system are estimated to be also 2.5% of the school population and making up less than 5% of the Special school population. On this basis there is therefore no evidence that the Special schools represented an abusive regime and certainly bore no relation to any former Nazi concept. Regime change - Special schools' role changed In 1989, the Russian economy and communist regime collapsed. The Special schools continued as physical entities within the Czech Republic, Hungary and the Slovak Republic. However, their role was rapidly changed during the last 14 years, moving from a genuine remedial institution into an increasingly cruel system based on the former Nazi model. Segregation Currently (2003), over 40% of the Roma children are now sent to Special schools. In many rural communities the Special school population is made up of around 98% Roma children. These figures do not include those Romani infants who were added to these numbers at the beginning of the academic year 2002/2003 as "Special" kindergarten children. This event has increased the number of Roma children under the regime by about 15%-20% Something is seriously wrong Pseudo-science Independent work to assess the intelligence of Roma children attending such schools has concluded that the majority are of normal intelligence. The statistics and the uncommon surges in numbers of Roma children sent to these schools suggests that their selection, as in the case of the Nazi system, has no relationship to capability, intelligence or any rational educational criteria. "Gypsy business" The last aspect worthy of investigation was to find out whether or not this system was making money for anyone and, if so, how. Are the Special schools, like the Nazi Special schools, part of a broader "Gypsy business"? EVOLUTION OF THE INVESTIGATION Initiation of field work by ECRE - distortion of information Issue of parental choice In talking to parents about their children being at a Special school ECRE field workers noticed that they were often extremely ill at ease and did not want to discuss the issue. Many became visibly upset when it was suggested that it might be better if their children were transferred to the normal school. It was often quite difficult to find a parent who acknowledged that the Special school provided effectively no education at all. Many Roma questioned stated that the Special schools were adequate for their children. This sort of statement did not tie in with ECRE's detailed knowledge of the real views of Roma. ECRE admits that it was becoming very difficult to get anywhere by advancing concepts of Special schools being discriminatory or that it would be beneficial for parents to have a say in the selection of schooling for their children; people just froze up. This situation also meant that it was virtually impossible to discuss such matters as the benefits of integration. This behaviour, on the part of parents who knew ECRE was going to write a report, did not conform, in any way, with previous general surveys ECRE had undertaken nor with their knowledge, based upon regular contact with members of Roma communities, of how Roma felt about education. Roma consider education to be important for their children's future. Official evasion In raising the question of use of Special school funds with local authority officials ECRE could make no progress because of the general evasion. A device used by officials was to state that government statistics do not discriminate between ethnic groups. ECRE found the topic of Special school funding to be a closed door. On most occasions officials refused to discuss the topic usually on the basis that it was not their area of responsibility; this even included education and financial officials. Several even claimed that they could not show such information under the legal requirements of "data protection". Initial lack of progress By August 2001, the ECRE Management Committee decided that the rate of progress in advancing this work was unacceptable. They abandoned the work under the "ECRE banner" and re-initiated the work as an investigation using both non-Roma and Roma individuals with no previous association with ECRE. Subsequent progress This investigation work began in November 2001, exclusively in rural areas. After a very slow start, useful feedback appeared by late December 2001. Once ECRE began to receive feedback the Management Committee was then able to provide a more guidance to the field agents on the types of information required. During this second phase of the investigation a better quality of information emerged. Fraud and racial discrimination By March 2002 a clear and disturbing picture was emerging of massive financial fraud, within the political elites, based upon the classic Nazi-style fraud of misclassification of the Roma children in terms of groundless ethnic and educational capability "classifications". These fraudulent classifications were, and are, used to generate large numbers of Roma children in the "special category" to "justify" local budgets for Special schools. But the funds thus-justified are not used on the children at all. The direct victims of this fraud and corruption were found to be the Roma children sent to the Special schools to justify the transfer of funds from central budgets. There is much evidence that during the last 14 years, selection of children has been increasingly based upon racial discrimination. Subsequent investigation provided an insight into the history of this process and more particularly the rise in abuse of the system for financial motivations during the last 5 years. WHY THERE IS NO PARENTAL CHOICE Parental choice incurs unacceptable risks to a family It became apparent that most Roma parents were, and are, given no choice as to where their children are to be educated. Those who were told their children were to be sent to the Special school, and who objected to this decision, were directly, or indirectly, threatened by local authority officials, and even educational officers, not to question this decision. The people who were not to be questioned, in fact could not be questioned, were the educational psychologists who undertook the classifications. They were the "professional experts." Other parents admitted that the obvious message was that if they questioned this decision they could lose their monthly payments of child benefits (paid by the same local authority) and, in cases of the unemployed, their unemployment benefit payments (also controlled by the local authority). Conspiracy of silence Consequently, as a direct result of this form of coercion there was, and is, a silence concerning Special schools; it is a topic which Roma parents find difficult to discuss. Interpretative consequences It is therefore easy for the uninitiated, and especially outsiders, to misinterpret the situation for one in which the Roma are not particularly concerned about the education of their children. This stereotype is amply reinforced by government officials and educational "experts". They frequently maintain a misleading image of the Roma by making reference to them as being people who do not understand nor appreciate the importance of education. The implication being that if there is anything wrong with the education of Roma children, it is a result of the poor standard of, or irresponsibility of, Roma parents. Most official reports on Roma education published during the last decade do not seem to have recognized, or if they did, have failed to acknowledge the pressure brought upon Roma families by the government and educational officials, armed with fraudulent psychologist's "classifications" to accept the affront of placing their children in Special schools. The reality On the other hand, as a result of previous forums between ECRE and Roma parents, on the issue of education in general, and as a result of their regular individual contacts with Roma, it is well known that Roma parents feel education is important for their children. SPECIAL SCHOOL FUNDING The levels of funding Part of the investigation was to ascertain the levels of funding available to Special schools because Special schools were, and remain, extremely ill-equipped, and there is effectively no useful instruction. As a result the children languish and essentially lose interest and finally, and understandably, become without motivation within the institutional environment. Investigators were able to obtain several sets of local authority documents recording the financial transfers under the Special school regime. As a result of contacts with retired officials, it was possible to build up a picture of what had happened previously. It is a significant amount of money The Special school budget for each town or village is transferred from central government as a lump sum equivalent to the number of Special children in any particular town or village. The amounts transferred in 2002/2003 are approximately the equivalent to Euro 1,750 each year per child allocated to the Special school. This sum is far higher than expected and is extremely generous, even by international standards. Small villages can have between 50 to 150 Special school children, an average transfer of some Euro 175,000 per village. This amount for a poor rural village in central Europe is a massive amount of money. Some of this money is used to provide salaries for Special school teachers which are taken on at roughly the rate of one teacher for every 25 children. The per child transfer under the Special school regime is just a little less than the equivalent of an annual salary of one teacher. In other words for 100 children the authority will receive Euro 175,000 and 4 teachers will be paid a total of Euro 8,000. This is equivalent to 4.5% of the total transfer. Given this level of financial generosity, and noting the lack of expenditure on the Special schools, it is natural to ask just how is such a high figure is justified. No matter how much investigation work was undertaken it was virtually impossible to identify where the remaining 95% of the transfer was or is spent. These funds are clearly not spent on the Special school nor the Special school children. INTERIM CONCLUSIONS Between 1989-2003, the Special school systems in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia changed from being schools dedicated to the needs of children with special needs to a fully fledged Nazi-style institution. The special schools combine the following characteristics of the Nazi system: no parental choice in where their children are sent fraudulent classifications of children by government paid psychologists broad branding of such normal children as being mentally deficient segregation of the majority of Roma children in rural villages vast fund transfers to those who manage the schools a vibrant "Gypsy business" benefiting members of the mainstream In the next part of this article we will review statistics in more detail. Link to the next part, Part 2 ? Document: ECRE(2003) 002; Updated 18th March 2003  A Report on an Investigation by EUROPEAN COMMITTEE ON ROMANI EMANCIPATION ECRE, European Economic Interest Grouping, THE IMPACT OF SPECIAL SCHOOLS ON THE ROMA IN CENTRAL EUROPE,  A case of wilful criminal neglect & professional incompetence, Brussels, 26 February 2003