The author is an analyst at the MR Štefánik Conservative Institute and a founding member of the civil association New Education
For many years, several individuals or institutions have repeatedly pointed out how, in the current system of financing schools, it is possible to interfere with the education of Roma in the environment of relocated workplaces of secondary vocational schools.
The common features of systemic failures in this area can be pointed out in two cases that in recent years had some media coverage and were also of interest to law enforcement authorities, but still remain without an end. There is also a lack of will to correct the system on the part of the government, especially the ministries of education and finance. It’s shameful, it’s shocking, but it’s true.
The school in Trebišov, where almost all of its students failed and the member of parliament György Gyimesi came to its aid, was recently covered in detail in Denník N by Denisa Gdovinová in her report article. The school in Sečovce, which wanted to take hundreds of thousands of euros out of the system due to the overpriced rent for dilapidated buildings, and the activist and later member of parliament Monika Kozelová came to its aid, was devoted to the daily Korzár in its articles for a long time.
The cases of both schools bear signs of systemic failures and a similar modus operandi. We will take a closer look at some of them.
The first sign – predatory recruitment of pupils for the school
Nothing is free, and even seemingly free education without money is not possible. Financial contributions provided from public sources, so-called norms, are essential for our schools and their functioning. These are provided to school founders mainly according to the number of pupils the schools educate. The more students a school has, the more money it receives from the state budget for education.
In order to have enough students and the resulting norms, the school will be built near a Roma settlement or ghetto. At first glance, it appears as a beneficial activity, education as a service actually comes as close as possible to those for whom it is intended. However, if this state grants permission to set up a school near Roma settlements, it is acting contrary to the spirit of its commitment addressed to the European Commission, as this increases the risk of segregated education, for which we are currently facing a lawsuit at the European Court of Justice. In order for the establishment of a school to take place as quickly as possible in our educational system full of bureaucracy, the allocated workplace of an already existing school will ideally be used for this purpose. Imagine it as a branch of the school, which will be established in another place, peacefully in another village, district or region.
In order to have enough students and the resulting norms, the school tries to enroll as many souls as possible. In this effort, one can go as far as in the case of the “eloquent” school in Sečovce, where even visually impaired seamstresses were supposed to learn to work on sewing machines. Or one can go as far in this effort as in the case of the “elocated” school in Trebišov, which was established in a town where other vocational schools have been operating for many years, and the newly created elocated workplace began to take over pupils in a downright predatory manner. The school was founded just before the beginning of the school year, but immediately it was one of the largest in the district in terms of the number of students.
In addition to the fact that several pupils were harmed by the expansion of the school with dubious quality of education, as pointed out by the State School Inspection, it was also