REMEMBRANCE IN TIME - Index of

Violeta STOYCHEVA: Educational Integration of Minorities … 493
According to the official statistics [18] from 2001, 72.2% of the Roma had primary or
basic education, 7.8% – primary unfinished, and 1.2% were illiterate. Only 0.3%
managed to move to the group of higher education graduates, which characterizes the
educational level of the Roma in the beginning of the 21 st century as very low. This fact
preserves its negative character in the following years as well.
The statistics from 2011 shows that the total number of illiterate people in Bulgaria is
currently 112 778 and their share in the population aged 9 and above is 1.5%. For those
who self-identify as Bulgarians it is 0.5%, for the Turkish ethnic group – 4.7%, while for
the Roma group – 11.8%.
Among children aged between 7 and 15 years, which should be covered by the
education system but do not attend school as of 1.02.2011, differences are also observed
significant regarding their self-identification to the three ethnic groups. In the Roma
ethnic group 23.02% of this age group does not go to school, in the Turkish ethnic group
this percentage is 11.9% and in the Bulgarian – 5.6%. A rough idea about the actual
dimensions of these percentages give the data of the Regional Inspectorates of Education
(RIE), according to which in the last several years the total number of Roma pupils in the
country from grades 1 to 12 is about 90 000–95 000, i.e. the Roma children constitute
between 10% and 11% of all pupils covered by the national education system.
Another alarming fact from the last census in 2011 is the inclusion of the category
“never attended school”. The number of those people, who have never been part of the
education system, is 81 000 or 1.2 % of the population aged 7 and above. The trend of
continuous increase of illiteracy refers mainly to the Roma community. The share of
the illiterate Roma aged 15–64 in the period between the last two censuses has
increased by approximately 50 %. This turns them into a risk factor, especially the
young people below 24.
When the low education level of the Roma community is being discussed, it is
necessary to distinguish between two factors: on the one hand, the group of Roma
children, who do not start going to school at all, and on the other – the Roma pupils, who
drop out of the education system. According to data, announced by the media, only for
2010–2011 school year approximately 20 000 children in the country did not start school.
Although not all of these children are Roma, it is a fact that together with the age
increases the number of those not attending any educational institution. According to
Teodora Krumova [19], leader of the Roma organization Amalipe in Veliko Tarnovo, in
grade 1the Roma children are about 25%, in grade 8 they are below 8%, while in grade 9
they are even below 3%, i.e. for every 100 Roma children, who start in grade1, only 14
continue to the secondary level of education and reach grade 10 of the compulsory school
age. For the other ethnic groups – of the Bulgarians and the Turks, this problem also
exists, but its scope and the difficulties are not of this size and complexity as with the
Roma, i.e. the Roma community is considered as the group, which permanently has the
lowest level of education.
Most studies addressing Roma issues find several main groups of reasons for school
dropout: social, economic, ethno-cultural, psychological and pedagogical [20].
Social reasons are related most of all with family relationships. For a Roma child “the
home” is not just a place to live. To be “at home” means to live with the family in an
environment that creates the feeling of belonging to a something. However, many