Macedonia promotes education for Roma population

Macedonia promotes education for Roma population

The government and civil society are funding and implementing programmes for young Roma to attend school and improve their social integration.

Roma community leaders tour the new Roma high school in Suto Orizari. [Miki Trajkovski/SETimes]

Macedonia is investing nearly 2 million euros to build and equip the first Roma high school in Suto Orizari in Skopje, where 30,000 Roma live.

Officials said more than 2,000 Roma children are expected to enrol in the high school in September.

"We expect the structure to be finished [this] month and the high school will be fully functional for the upcoming academic year," said Spiro Ristovski, education and science minister of Macedonia.

The structure is 4,000 square metres and houses a library, a gym as well as other facilities.

The school will allow young Roma to finish primary and secondary education in their municipality, said Redzep Ali Cupi, director of the directorate for promotion and development of languages in the education of ethnic minorities.

"Students of other nationalities will also be able to attend and that will contribute to the breaking up of stereotypes and prejudices about the Roma community. The school will be a space for promoting co-operation and tolerance," Cupi told SETimes.

Cupi said such efforts will allow Roma to be educated in their mother tongue in the near future. Macedonian schools offer Roma language as an optional subject beginning in the third grade.

Truancy among the young Roma has been a serious problem. At present, 10,500 Roma children are enroled in primary schools, a 23 percent increase since 2005, Cupi said, adding that the number of Roma high school...