Young Roma overcome hardships and head to college
Elvis Hajdar grew up in a sprawling Roma settlement where most young men leave school early for the grim world of unemployment and poverty in Eastern and Central Europe. His parents had other ideas. "They told me you must study," says Mr. Hajdar, now 23. "Your future is only studying."
The odds were against him. The region's 5 million to 6 million Gypsies, or Roma, are a scattered, impoverished minority who lag far behind non-Roma in education. In Hajdar's own neighborhood, whose estimated population of 30,000 makes it one of the largest Romany communities in the world, relatively few graduate from high school.
But Hajdar took his parents' admonition to heart. In elementary school, where most of his classmates were Roma, he was awarded a prize for the best student in mathematics. In high school, where he was the only Rom in his class, he struggled but persevered.
Today Hajdar, a personable young man with dark eyes and a ready smile, studies computer programming at the University of Cyril and Methodius, Macedonia's state university. Although still two years from graduating, he has become somewhat of a computer geek in his neighborhood, called Shuto Orizari, or simply "Shutka." "If someone says computer, everyone says my name," Hajdar says. "Elvis is a synonym for computer in Shutka."
Hajdar is one of a small but growing number of young Roma in Eastern and Central Europe who are making their way into the region's universities and overcoming obstacles that have long stood between Roma and higher education. In Macedonia, which has the highest concentration of Roma in the region, the number of Roma studying at a university rose to 97 last year from just nine in 1994, according to the Skopje office of the Open Society Institute.
More young Roma are entering universities today not only because they are persistent but also because organizations like the European Roma Rights Center and the Open Society Institute are offering them scholarships, part of a broader effort to improve Romany education. Other assistance comes from organizations like Roma Versitas, whose center in downtown Skopje offers Romany university students encouragement as well as the use of computers, a library, and a non-Romany mentor.
"There is a dramatically rising number of Romany students in universities in Hungary, Romania, Slovakia - all over," says Claude Cahn, programs director at the European Roma Rights Center in Budapest. "There are more people talking about education not only for economic advancement, but for the Roma in general, for advancing the rights and interests of the Roma as a people. They want not only to attain higher levels of education, but also to give something back to the community."
Such ambitions are hard to fulfill. Studies by the World Bank and other organizations have found that poverty, discrimination, and segregation hold back Roma at every level of education, winnowing out all but the most determined and most fortunate. Most Romany children do not attend preschool programs, and many receive little or no elementary school education. Even the children who make it to eighth grade typically do not go on to high school. Those who do usually drop out before graduating.
A 2002 United Nations study found that fewer than 10 percent of Roma had completed high school in some of the countries with the largest Romany populations, including Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. Even with recent gains, the number of Roma receiving a university education "is so minuscule it's difficult to even count or put a percentage on it," says Christina McDonald, an expert on Romany education at the regional office of the Open Society Institute in Budapest.
Poverty is the biggest obstacle, say Ms. McDonald and other experts. Most Roma lack jobs and cannot afford books, school supplies, and clothing. In countries where Roma still speak their own language, Romany children struggle in state schools to learn the national language. Often the local authorities shunt them to special schools for slow learners. And many Romany children attend segregated schools, where prejudice, indifference, and low expectations doom their chances.
One of the greatest challenges for young Roma is making the transition from elementary schools with mostly Romany students to ethnically mixed and more competitive high schools.
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