12 JAN 2001

BUDAPEST — Inside a crowded classroom in eastern Hungary, Regina Lakatos bumps into desks and steps on the toes of fellow pupils, eager to show off a gypsy dance she has just learned.

Ten years old, Lakatos was enrolled in school for the first time this year. Forgotten by the system and kept at home by her parents, she grew up inside a Roma gypsy ghetto at the edge of town, where paved roads give way to dirt, pot-holed paths lined with rows of ramshackle houses.

Lakatos attends one of two Roma-only special schools in the Hajduhadhaz school district — remedial schools to help gypsy children “catch-up” to the level of their Hungarian peers.

Hajduhadhaz teachers say these special schools help prepare children like Lakatos for future integration with Hungarian pupils. Critics say the practice promotes segregation among the Roma and fosters an attitude of prejudice.

“I don’t think educators are evil, or that they place these children in special classes intentionally,” said Christina McDonald, senior programme manager at the Open Society Institute in Budapest. “It’s just a dysfunctional system.”

Despite a long history of special Roma classes, gypsy advocates are lobbying for integrated schooling.

With only 46 percent of Roma children making it past primary school, integrated classes from kindergarten would keep education in Hungary on a level playing field and reduce prejudice against the country’s largest minority, they argue.

They are not alone in their concern.

The issue of Roma student segregation is at the forefront for Hungary and other Eastern European countries as an accession issue for candidate states to join the European Union. The EU has criticised most of them about the treatment of the region’s millions of gypsies, telling them they will have to clean up their act before accession.

Hungary has responded with a flurry of government programmes and billions of forints (millions of dollars) in funding to curb discrimination against Roma and improve their conditions.

But many initiatives are still on the drawing board, mired by staffing problems and red tape, with results not expected for some years, which could be too long a wait for the EU.

“This is not an area, if you want to impress member states and you’re pushing for early membership, that you can afford delays in,” said Michael Lake, head of the European Commission’s delegation to Hungary.

Citing the EU’s annual progress report on Hungary published in November, Lake said up to 94 percent of Roma students in some parts of Hungary study in segregated schools — a practice so widespread it must be regarded as policy.

“This is very disturbing,” Lake said.

A History of Prejudice

Central Europe’s Roma, who come from various tribes believed to have emigrated from India in the Middle Ages, number some four million.

Hungary has the biggest gypsy population of any of the EU candidates, estimated at between 500,000 and 800,000, many of whom chafe from anti-gypsy prejudices. u

Last month, a group of 33 Roma adults and children fled Hungary for the Netherlands, citing discrimination at their homes in three Hungarian towns. They are not the first to leave.

In mid-2000, 21 Roma families left for Strasbourg to file for political asylum at the European Court of Human Rights. The Czech Republic and Slovakia have also come under fire. Residents in a town north of Prague tried unsuccessfully in 1999 to construct a wall to separate gypsies from non-gypsies across the street.

In Slovakia in August, a Roma mother of two was beaten to death as she tried to defend her children from assailants wielding baseball bats.

Hungarian government officials are expecting a medium-term action programme, adopted and aimed at improving the lives of Roma in Hungary, to show results in the next few years.

In November, parliament passed a special Roma educational component of the programme valued at 9.6 billion euros ($9.05 billion) and financed partially from the EU’s PHARE fund.

“On paper they are on the right track,” Lake said of several Hungarian initiatives to improve Roma conditions.

The EU’s November report, however, noted that “the situation of the Roma population continues to be difficult”.

Can Separate Be Equal?

In Hajduhadhaz, 143 Roma are taught in two special primary schools, with no Hungarians enrolled in either.

Of the more than 2,100 pupils at the central school, 90 are Roma. Hajduhadhaz teachers said the central school is not segregated. Rather, gypsy students are disadvantaged from the start, born in the ghetto and raised in poverty.

“You have to take into account the financial situation of these families, they are poor, they have many children, they have no books and they live in bad housing,” said Iren Gulyas, principal of the Hajduhadhaz special learning school.

“We are not treating them differently, we are helping them.”

Since 1992, municipalities across Hungary have had a major incentive to help Roma children — up to 30 percent more in state subsidies than for Hungarian pupils.

They receive an annual payment of 104,000 forints ($437.80) per pupil in primary school and an additional 27,500 forints for Roma children — but only if enrolled in special classes.

Roma activists say this practice is used to place gypsies in special classes so municipalities can collect the maximum fee.

But Laszlo Kornyei, deputy state secretary at the Education Ministry, said the only way to curb segregation was to punish those who do it. That is not possible, he said, in the current political climate giving broad power to municipalities.

“Right now in Hungary no one can touch the municipalities, not even parliament,” he said.

A Few Manage To Escape

The problem looks likely to continue, but on occasion someone beats the odds.

Although less than a quarter of a percent of Hungary’s gypsies graduate from university, Bela Bekes, 22, is studying at a Budapest university for a degree in communications.

In appearance, he looks like any other college student, with baggy pants, loose sweater and a mop of black, wavy hair. But he said he faces prejudice and discrimination on a daily basis.

As a child, classmates teased him and teachers told him Roma were thieves, he said.

At a secondary school 150 km (95 miles) from his home, Bekes said he was forced to sleep in the primary school dormitory because classmates refused to allow him in the secondary school dorm. Bekes’s 80,000 forints per term tuition fee is paid partially by subsidies from the Education Ministry, the rest he funds working full-time at the Roma Press Centre.

Even in the capital he is still denied entry to some bars and rejected from jobs.

Today he is dreaming of graduating and a better life abroad. His girlfriend is eight weeks pregnant. “We may leave, I don’t want my children growing up in this environment. I got ahead, but it was not easy. Anyone who tells you different is lying.”

At the time of publication, $1=1.062 euros and $1=237.51 forints