08/04/2018
FSG
On the occasion of the International Roma Day on April 8, Fundación Secretariado Gitano has launched a new awareness campaign under the slogan "I do not want a segregated school". The aim of the campaign is to give visibility to the worrying extent of segregation in Spanish schools that affects thousands of Roma pupils. This practice constitutes a violation of their right to education and perpetuates discrimination and social inequalities.
The video of the campaign shows a family of Romani origin who moves to a new neighbourhood and is looking for a new school for its daughter. During a school visit, the family is openly invited to visit a segregated school where most of the pupils “come from your same background”, using comments such as “our pupils are “normal” girls and boys”, “we would have to evaluate whether she would fit in”, or probably the other school “will fit better with your profile”.
The site of the campaign www.gitanos.org/dontwantasegregatedschool offers testimonies and a signature petition in favour of an inclusive education.
In the coming weeks FSG will also launch a participative action is social media to build an e-book with drawings, pictures, testimonies, stories and illustrations that will be published at the end of April.
The campaign has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Social Affairs and the European Social Fund.
Cartel de campaña
School segregation is a discriminatory practice that consists of concentrating students with similar characteristics (in this case, ethnicity) in certain classrooms or schools. Spain is one of the countries berated by international organizations for failing to comply with the recommendations to correct this unfair and permanently invisibilized situation. ECRI (The European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance), the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, or the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights have in recent reports expressed their concern about school segregation and urged Spain to take measures that ensure an equitable distribution of Roma and immigrant pupils. The FRA (Agency of the European Union of Fundamental Rights), in a report published last week, singles out segregation of Roma pupils in separate schools and classrooms of as one of the main barriers that limit their social inclusion.
According to the European survey EU-Midis II (Fundamental Rights Agency of the European Union), in Spain, 31% of Roma children attend schools with a high concentration of Roma pupils. In the FSG we have evidence of at least 173 segregated schools in Spain, a figure that, in the absence of any official studies, shows a phenomenon of great proportions.
With the hashtag #DontWantaSegregatedSchool, the campaign aims to raise awareness among the general public, and politicians and policy makers in particular, about this unfair situation that has very negative consequences on the quality of education, limits the learning opportunities of Roma pupils, undermines social cohesion and mutual learning and perpetuates discrimination and social inequalities.
This is why, from Fundación Secretariado Gitano we call up on public authorities to take the necessary measures to revert this situation and include the eradication of school segregation as one of the objectives of the future National Education Pact.
Links
