US embassy cable - 05LJUBLJANA275

UNCLAS LJUBLJANA 000275 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
DEPT FOR EUR/NCE, DRL 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KISL, PHUM, SI 
SUBJECT: ROMA EDUCATION DISPUTE RESOLVED TEMPORARILY 
 
 
1.  Summary.  Slovenia's Minister of Education and Sport has 
recently made two visits to Novo Mesto in south-east 
Slovenia to address a dispute over the education of Roma 
children in that community.  A temporary solution has been 
found which will place those children needing extra 
assistance in special classes.  This action does not solve 
the fundamental problems of education in the Roma community, 
and it has been criticized as creating a two-tier system, 
which would further disadvantage Roma students.  While the 
temporary solution is acknowledged to be imperfect, this 
relatively balanced response from the government can be seen 
as a sign that the GOS is committed to increasing 
integration into Slovene society of the Roma community. End 
Summary. 
 
2.  The current situation resulted when parents of a Roma 
primary school student arrived at the school to physically 
settle a score with a teacher who allegedly had poorly 
treated the Roma child.  At the same time, parents of non- 
Roma children (the majority at the school) were insisting 
that the Roma students, who were concentrated in this 
primary school, be distributed evenly among all Novo Mesto 
schools.  There were threats to boycott classes until this 
change would be effected.  Of the 626 students enrolled in 
the school, 86 are Roma. 
 
3.  When Minister Zver announced he would travel to the city 
on 9 March to mediate, the boycott was averted.  He also 
refused to relocate the Roma students to other schools, as 
this would be a violation of the law.  His short-term 
solution was to create separate classes for language and 
math for those students needing remedial instruction.  This 
move was initially interpreted by the parents of the Roma 
students as an attempt at segregation, which led them to 
boycott classes and prompted another visit by the Minister 
on 6 April.  In this visit, the Minister was able to 
persuade the parents that the measures were temporary and 
designed to integrate students into regular classes.  Zver 
also said students would not be placed in the classes based 
on their ethnicity.  Accordingly, 25 of the 86 Roma children 
will remain fulltime in regular classes. He vowed to monitor 
progress, and if the new arrangement proved ineffective, 
pledged to replace it. 
 
4.  Comment.  As with most of its European neighbors, 
Slovenia continues to struggle with how to best integrate 
its Roma community into the mainstream of society.  The 
flare-up over integration in schools in Novo Mesto 
highlights that there is still some ways to go to get this 
part of the equation right.  There are good models already 
in Slovenia, which could be a basis for a permanent 
solution.  In the north-east region of Prekmurje, the Roma 
community has more successfully integrated into local 
society including in education.  The Government of Slovenia 
has put drafting an umbrella act on the Roma on its agenda 
for 2005 and will attempt to address the problems that have 
plagued it most of its recent history:  education, living 
conditions and unemployment.  End Comment 
 
Robertson 
 
 
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 2005LJUBLJ00275 - Classification: UNCLASSIFIED 


 
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