Transferencia y transporte 4 Transformación y tratamiento de residuos

In the annex to last year’s report, we published in full our report on the teaching of Roma pupils in Csörög. In the course of our investigation we established that the representative body of the Szõd local government through the school placement of the children according to place of residence had directly discriminated against and segregated some of the children, and also practised indirect discrimination and segregation on an ethnic basis.

In 2007 we faced a new problem: the right of 29 pupils from Csörög to basic-level education was put at risk.

Szõd decided to close the ‘small school’ which earlier had taught some of the Csörög Roma pupils in a segregated manner, but the physical circum- stances were not available for placing all of the Csörög children. Although a teaching partnership of indefinite duration was established between Csörög and Szõd, Szõd only undertook cooperation up to a certain number

of pupils determined by the physical capacity of the school. As a result of this the access to basic education of 29 pupils (pupils entering year four and year seven and ten pupils entering year one in the 2007/2008 academic year) became uncertain.

On our initiative it proved possible to find places for the pupils for the start of the 2007/2008 academic year with the cooperation of the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Education Office, the competent public administration office and civil organisations, however the general aspect of the problem has not yet been solved.

In this case we had to face the fact that some local governments are not happy to form partnerships with those settlements where a lot of Gypsy pupils study, or would study if there were a school, and as a result the right of these children to basic-level education is at risk. In the given case a municipal government without its own school network cannot perform its obligatory municipal government task of ensuring general school education because none of the neighbouring settlements are willing to form an edu- cation partnership with it.

The current regulations do not offer a solution to such situations. Free partnership is one of the fundamental rights of self-governance. According to the current regulations nobody may force the local governments into forming partnerships, however in some cases obligatory municipal govern- ment tasks can only be solved in the framework of such a partnership.

In order to remedy the constitutional violation arising from the legisla- tive failing we turned to the Minister of Justice and Law Enforcement, and the Minister of Local Government and Regional Development with a leg- islative proposal. The professional working group which was established as a result of our initiative drew up two legislative proposals for the creation of a (forced) contract, according to which another local government or organ- isation provides the public education service in the place of the local gov- ernment failing to do so.

We received a complaint from parents living in a small settlement that the local Roma children from 1 September 2007 would attend a city school where the proportion of Roma children is already high. The complainants wanted the Gypsy children to be able to continue their studies in different schools rather than in one place.

The main site of the city elementary school is located in the centre of the city. The pupils in the upper classes study there. German national minority language teaching takes place in the majority of the classes, but according to the information provided by the local government in every year there is also a class which follows the general curriculum.

The pupils in the lower classes study in a different building. This school is also located in the centre of the city and German national minority lan- guage teaching takes place. With the exception of years three and four, here too there is a class which follows the general curriculum in every year.

The other site is located on the edge of the city, and is attended by pupils from both the upper and lower forms. National minority teaching does not take place. To quote from the city local government’s Equal Opportunities Programme: ‘... the small number of multiply disadvantaged children is mainly concentrated on the housing estate on the edge of the city. Here until the legislative amendment to the definition of disadvantaged and multiply disadvantaged situation, the proportion of disadvantaged pupils was found to be 70% ...’

In its letter the local government also described that the city’s Roma pop- ulation which at most represents 2-3% of the whole population mainly lives in the housing estate area of the city. The reason for this is that the labour- ers of Gypsy origin who work in the factories operating here live on the housing estate. According to the information provided by the local govern- ment, as a result of the reorganisation the proportion of Gypsy children at the school near the estate is around 30%, whilst the proportion of Gypsy pupils studying at the main site of the school is around 1%.

Based on our investigation we established the following irregularities:

•The Public Education Act prescribes the public nature of competence tests, but we could not get official results from the Ministry of Education and Culture.

•The definition of multiply disadvantaged situation infers that the par- ents have been contacted, informed and have given a voluntary declaration. However, in the current legislative environment it cannot be checked whether all the parents have been contacted and whether they have been given adequate information about the purpose of supplying the data and how the data will be handled.

•Since the local government could not refer to any positive legal autho-

risation for the segregation, and also informed us that Gypsy minority edu- cation does not take place in the school near the estate, the difference in the proportion of pupils of Roma origin between the main site of the school and the school near the estate has to be regarded as unlawful segregation. The local government is preparing to submit an application: they are planning changes which would solve the current ‘school debate’. According to the application they would begin the expansion and modernisation of the main site of the school, and in parallel with this they would close down the school located near the estate. According to the plans, in the future every child from the city and the small settlement could study at the main site of the school, so if the application is successful the current ethnic-based unlawful segregation could be eliminated.

Since it is the obligation of the local government to take action against the unlawful situation as soon as possible, and because the elimination of segregation cannot depend on the success of an application, we addressed to the city representative body with the following recommendation:

a) modify the catchment areas in such a way that segregation can not occur on an ethnic or racial basis,

b) ensure that Roma children living in the small settlement can also study at the main site of the school, i.e. from the following year create general curriculum classes at the main site of the school with a mixture of children from the city and the small settlement and solve the transport issue by using a school bus,

c) in the case of already existing class structures, the pupils from the small settlement currently attending the school near the estate should be given a preparatory course, with the help of which they can take an exam to asses if they have reached the appropriate level, and can join the classes at the main site of the school where national minority teaching takes place.

At the time of writing the report we had not yet received the reply of the municipal government to our recommendations.

C h a p t e r V

Maintaining institutions –