Roma Education Policies in Hungary

By Péter Radó, Assistant Director, Institute for Educational Policy, OSI-Budapest

Source: Expert study done for the World Bank. The findings reflect those of the author and should not be attributed to the World Bank

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to review and evaluate the Roma educational policies of the previous decade in Hungary. This task is not an easy one, because in the transition period three sets of educational policy related problems should be taken into account at the same time:

• The different policy initiatives of the Government that target directly the educational problems of Roma children;
• The mainstream educational policies that directly or indirectly affect the education of Roma children;
  
• The ongoing systemic transformation of the Hungarian education system that also affects the education of Roma children and/or the systemic environment and conditions of policy-making.

The border among these "concentric policy circles" is ambiguous. For example the overall curriculum reform, that is, the adoption of the new National Core Curriculum (NCC) changed dramatically the overall system of content regulation, which had a huge impact on educational targets, as well as the context and objectives of special Roma education development programs. For this reason, this paper - after outlining the policy problems - moves from the general context to the description and evaluation of specific government initiatives.

1. The policy problem

An in-depth analysis of the education problems of Roma children in Hungary is beyond the scope of this paper. However, a short summary of the problems against which the characteristics, quality and effectiveness of policies should be measured seems to be inevitable.

The failure of Roma pupils in the Hungarian education system is well documented by several research results and reports. However, although the fact is obvious, our knowledge about some aspects of the problem and its causes is still limited. Nevertheless, we can say, that the huge gap between the educational attainment of Roma and majority children, is the combination of two overlapping dimensions: the low quality of educational provisions for Roma children and the different forms of discrimination in education. In addition, as in all cases of education for minorities, schools should provide the conditions for free choice of identity, that is, they should provide access to the language and culture of the Roma community. In general, we can assume that in relation of the education for Roma the success or failure of the Hungarian education system should be assessed against three broad educational policy goals:
- Assuring equity in education in terms of resources, quality of the teaching-learning process and learning outcomes.
- Eliminating of all kinds and forms of discrimination.
- Assuring access to the Roma language(s) and culture.

Before assessing the "achievement" of the Hungarian education system in relation to the above mentioned goals it should be mentioned at the outset that due to the lack of basic information it is difficult to come up with any detailed analysis on the matter. In this respect the main obstacles are the following:
- Since 1993 (the legislation on the protection of personal data) education statistics do not include data about the ethnic affiliation of students.
- Due to the lack of a system of external evaluation the quality of education in the schools where Roma children are taught can not be assessed.
- The regular monitoring of the achievement of students in Hungary is not representative for the Roma students.
- Partly in connection to the previous problems, it is hard to draw a detailed picture about the extent and forms of discrimination against Roma children, especially about its "invisible" in-classroom forms.
- Due to the lack of empirical representative research education's impact on the identity and language skills of Roma children can hardly be assessed.

Bearing in mind all these obstacles we should admit that the weight of any remarks aiming at identifying the main policy problems is, at least, relative. Nevertheless, there is an emerging consensus among experts of the field in Hungary, that the key matters in relation to the education of Romany children are the following:
- In the eighties and nineties the gap between the highest and average education attainment of the Roma population and the majority became wider. On the secondary level the progress chances of Roma students did not increase at all, their drop-out rate decreased in the primary school but increased in apprenticeship schools and in secondary level education with a final examination.
- The reason for the school failure of Roma students is that educational institutions are not able to make up for the different disadvantages. The reason behind school failures is thus the language and social disadvantage, the inappropriate pedagogical practice, problems related to learning motivation, discrimination, the generally bad relationship between the schools and the parents, the inappropriate content of Roma education programs. The different combinations of these reasons varying in every community.
- There are several forms of discrimination against Roma students: operation of segregated Roma classes, directing students with no disabilities into special schools for disabled, different techniques of in-classroom discrimination.
- The education of Roma students does not ensure the realization of their right to receive education on their language, does not provide access to their culture, and in general it communicates assimilatory expectations.
- Several special Roma minority educational institution models have been established in Hungary but due to the lack of evaluation as regards their success from educational and ethnic aspect we cannot draw conclusions.
- Although the multicultural character of majority education has strengthened during the past decade, it is far from being sufficient from the aspect of the integration of the Roma population and the creation of an inclusive environment for Romany children.

2. Systemic environment and policy making

2.1. The transformation of the systemic environment of policy making

In the nineties the Hungarian education system went through a deep systemic transformation. Since the outcomes of this transition process mark the space of policy making and prescribes the possible tools of policy implementation, a short description of the key characteristics of the new systemic environment is inevitable. These characteristics are the following:

Decentralization and liberalization. The process of decentralization and liberalization of the Hungarian education system started in 1985, when a new act on education strengthened the autonomy of schools and opened ways for "opting out" from the centrally issued curricula. The public administration reform in 1990, the 1993 act on education and its amendments and the National Core Curriculum created a new system that is governed by educational targets and incentives rather than direct administration. Schools develop their own local pedagogical programs that include their own curricula. The school maintainers (local self-governments) without any intervention of the central government approve these programs. Also, the role of self-governments in the financing of education became almost equally important as that of the government.

Marketization. As a cumulative effect of per-capita financing, diversity of pedagogical programs, free choice of school and declining enrolment numbers throughout the entire decade, education in Hungary became more and more competitive. In order to optimize the use of their resources (sometimes in order to survive) schools are interested in maximizing the number of children they enroll. Also, the entire chain of educational services of which the schools are consumers (textbook publishing, different pedagogical services, in-service training, etc.) are liberalized and reorganized as free market services. (State maintained institutions, NGOs and private enterprises are competing in equal terms.) The role of the state was transformed from being the main supplier to that of market regulator, with particular emphasis on quality assurance in these services.

Transformation of governance. Due to the underlying principle of subsidiarity on which the new management of education is based in Hungary, the role of daily administrative running of the system was transferred to the self-governments. This change enables the Ministry of Education to build the mechanism of strategic steering of the system. Nevertheless, in special cases - such as the education of Roma - this constrains the space of government intervention. Roma education policies should be based mostly on persuasion, incentives, capacity building and institutional development.

Democratization of education. In the course of transformation a diversified and institutionalized system of policy consultation was developed in Hungary. At the national level a National Public Education Council was established for policy consultation, in which the organizations of the important stakeholders (parent and youth organizations, self-governments, professional organizations, trade unions, private school maintainers, minorities, etc.) are represented. Also, the institutions of sectoral tripartite negotiation have been created. At the regional level stakeholders are involved in decisions on the use of resources that are deployed for regional development. Since elected bodies make all the important educational decisions at the local and regional levels, the political legitimacy of the management of education is strengthened, as well. Nevertheless, it can cause problems, especially when local self-governments are biased or hostile against the Roma community.

2.2. The involvement of Roma the community in policy making

In relation to Roma education policies one of the outstanding issues is the self organization of the Roma community and its involvement to policy making. From the aspect of minority education, and especially the education of Roma children, one of the most important elements of the new legal regulation is that it enables minority self-governments to exercise their rights as contained in the law on the rights of minorities. Minority self-governments may ask for information, may initiate measures, may make proposals and may raise objections against practices or decisions violating minority rights. Minority self-governments may exercise their "right to agree" (in fact: veto) in decisions relating to minority education. Therefore, no governmental decision may legally be made without a previously signed agreement with the minority self-governments. The right to agree is especially important in connection to the approval of the local self-governments' minority related budgets, the appointment of institution heads and the educational program of the school
.
The rights of minority self-governments are basically related to the activities of the school maintainers (in most cases the local self-government). Besides this, minority self-governments may delegate representatives to the school board and through this may influence the operation of the educational institutions, as well. Minority self-governments may also participate in professional supervision of schools.

The law on public education created the National Minority Committee as an advisory body to the Minister of Culture and Education (after 1998: Minister of Education). The Committee takes part in the preparation of ministerial decisions concerning minority education. The members of the Committee are delegated by the national minority self-governments, its legal status is the same as of the National Council of Education. The participation of the Committee in policy making does not negate the rights ensured for the national minority self-governments.

In spite of the above described system of policy consultation and the strong mandate given to the Roma minority self-governments for participation in decision making the influence of Roma communities on Roma education policies is extremely limited at all levels. This low influence can be explained by three sets of reasons: (1) The establishment of Roma minority self-governments was not backed by an already existing strong Roma human rights protection movement. The legitimacy of the national Roma minority self-government is questioned by several influential Roma organizations and the actual level of self-organization of the Roma communities does not "fill in" the institutional frameworks that were created by self-governance. (2) The national Roma minority self-government and most of the local Roma self-governments failed to develop an elaborated view on the educational needs of Roma in Hungary, nor their own educational strategy. Therefore, negotiations on Roma educational policies are driven by the initiatives of the actual Ministry. (3) Roma self-governments at all levels are dependent on the financial support of the government and the local self-governments. Therefore, their position in the course of negotiations is weak.

3. The ethnic dimension of policies

3.1. Language and culture

The mother tongue of more than two thirds of the Roma population in Hungary is Hungarian, the mother tongue of the others is one of the Roma dialects or a dialect of the Romanian language. Therefore, although the number of individuals belonging to groups with mother tongues other than Hungarian is low and due to the effect of a decades-long language switch process their number is gradually decreasing, they are still - according to the 1990 census data - the biggest language minority. Until now public education has taken no notice of this fact. One of the most important aims of Roma catch-up programs is still to bring them to a linguistically "educatable" state. Especially in the case of children who have not attended kindergarten, the lack of the expected language attainment seals their school career at the very the beginning. This is clearly indicated by the 1993 national Roma survey data: in the 25 to 29 years old age group 77 percent of those with Hungarian, 58 percent of those with Romanian and 52 percent of those with Roma mother tongue finished the eight grades of primary school.

Providing access to the children's own language and culture is important not only from the point of view of minority rights, but also essential for the pedagogical effectiveness of education. It contributes to the development of the students' self-esteem, while education delivering assimilatory expectations devastates it. In terms of access to the Roma language(s) and culture(s) in education there is a huge gap between the clearly emancipatory regulation and the real educational opportunities. Although, in theory, all kinds of minority education programs are open for Roma children due to the lack of skilled language teachers, textbooks, teaching materials, or any other kinds of conditions only a few private minority schools are prepared for the teaching of Roma language(s). The situation is very similar in relation to the teaching of Roma culture. One of the obstacles to the training of teachers is the a shortage of all kinds of readings, and even if teachers are trained, they are not supported by any teaching materials.

3.2. Discrimination

In the regulation of the education of Roma students the only serious deficiency is the lack of effective prohibition of discrimination against these students. The law on public education generally prohibits discrimination against students belonging to national and ethnic minorities, but it does not explain the concept, does not sanction the violation of the ban and does not appoint an authority to control the keeping of the ban. Due to all this - as the Minority Ombudsman also pointed out - today in Hungary there is no legal limit to school discrimination against Roma students.

In spite of all the outstandingly strong rights, minority self-governments have not had a significant influence on the work of minority education. This can be best seen in Roma education where the operation of Roma minority self-governments has not decreased the extent of discrimination against Roma students. Thus, in many cases even protest by the Roma minority self-government was not enough for the elimination of segregated Roma classes. The current government completely rejects to admit the pure fact of discrimination against Roma children in education. Also, there is a big number of local self-governments that proved to be biased against Roma. Since a big proportion of the Hungarian society shares anti Roma sentiments, politicians at all levels find risky any unambiguous anti-discrimination initiative. Nevertheless, there is an increasing pressure on the government claiming for anti-discrimination legislation.

4. The overall educational framework of policies

4.1. Regulation

Since a consistent minority legal system was developed in Hungary that provides from every aspect equal rights to the Roma population along with every other minorities, the regulations concerning the education of Roma students also does not form a separate system of rules. At the same time the regulation generally attempts to take into consideration the requirements rooted in the unique situation of the Roma population. The law about the rights of the minorities for example declares that special conditions can be created in the education of Roma students.

The system of regulation changed in some significant points in 1996 and 1997. The new regulation system was created by the 1996 modification of the 1993/LXXIX Act on public education, the ratification of the National Core Curriculum and the preparation of the Educational guidelines for the pre-school and school education of national and ethnic minorities. Among others, the aim of the new regulation was to harmonize the minority legal system: the 1993/LXXVII Act on the rights of national and ethnic minorities and the regulations of minority education. Also, the amendments to the law were to extend the system of minority related preferential regulations and partly to extend the new system of public educational content regulation into minority education.

The law on public education - in accordance with the constitution and the law on the rights of minorities - ensures the right for mother tongue education for those belonging to any minority and, at the same time, prohibits any kind of exclusion or discrimination against them. The law leaves it to parents to decide what kind pre-school and school education they want for their children. The organization of minority education is the responsibility of local self-governments. Minority kindergarten groups and school classes have to be organized if parents of eight children belonging to the same minority request it. Local self-governments responsible for organizing minority education can execute this task together as an association, or in the form of an agreement with the maintainer if that is other than the local self-government.

4.2. Curriculum and assessment

The Hungarian National Core Curriculum prescribes the minimum educational targets (knowledge, skills and competencies) at the end of 4., 6., 8. and 10. grades. The last two years of upper secondary education are regulated by the requirements of the school leaving examination and in vocational education by the qualification requirements set by the National Register of Qualifications. The NCC organizes the minimum educational targets into ten cultural domains. It is up to the local pedagogical program and curricula of the schools to decide on the complementary targets beyond the minimum requirements of the NCC and to decide upon of the subjects they teach.

In terms of content and educational targets the education of minorities does not form a separate system, the requirements of the NCC, as well as the examination and qualification requirements apply to their education, too. The NCC describes the principles of minority education in a separate section. This section offers five types of minority education programs. Compared to the previous regulation and educational practice the NCC contains new elements as well. Among others, the NCC considers intercultural education as one of the minority educational program, that is, these programs are financed at equal terms as the traditional (mother tongue, bilingual, language teaching and Roma "catch-up") programs. The NCC attaches equal values to the education of Roma students as to national minority education from the aspect of language and content, as well. That is, is makes it possible to start Roma language teaching, bilingual and mother tongue programs. Another new feature of the NCC is that each of the five minority educational program makes the teaching of minority culture compulsory. In relation to the education of Roma children this measure is aiming to strengthen the minority character of Roma catch-up programs. (Regulation is thus in every aspect far ahead of the opportunities.)

The Minister of Education regulates the content requirements of minority education in a separate document, in the so-called Guidelines connected to the National Core Curriculum. This document sets the content of the pre-school education of minority children and Roma children among them, the aim of Roma catch-up programs in schools, the obligatory and alternative elements, the general curricular and developmental requirements and the organization rules for these programs.

4.3. Textbook publishing, teacher training and pedagogical services

During the one and half decades long autonomous working the absorption capacity of Hungarian schools in general has increased to a remarkable extent. They have learnt how to use the available resources in the best way, and developed the capacity and organizational environment that allows for improvement of their pedagogical work on their own, if these efforts are supported by grants. This is not the case in most of the schools, which educate Roma and other disadvantaged children. Therefore, schools alone cannot be blamed for the often poor quality of school programs for Roma children. Lacking regulations, content and quality standards, sample curricula, textbooks, teaching aids, teaching guides and accompanying in-service teacher training programs, schools are alone in doing whatever they can. Because of this one of the most important question about the education of Roma students is whether there are institutions that can carry out the necessary developments.

The services that are available for the schools in Hungary are marketized to a huge extent. The state budget makes resources available for schools that enable them to buy these services on the market. However, the supply of such services designed to support the schools that are educating Roma children is poor. The free market alone cannot develop these services further. One of the striking examples is the lack of textbooks and other teaching materials for the education of Roma children. Due to high cost and "political risks" and low income private publishers are not interested in their development. Therefore, it is essential to take into account the supply that is offered by the state maintained institutions.

In 1992 a Center for National and Ethnic Minorities was established within the National Institute of Public Education. Due to the lack of resources the Center could not do any substantial developmental work. When the District Education Centers (deconcentrated regional education authorities) were established, within their organization a network of minority educational advisory system was developed. In 1996 the system of "background institutions" of the Ministry of Culture and Education was reorganized. In connection with this, and according to the objectives of the Minority Education Development Program of the Ministry of Education, the developmental and pedagogiacl service system of minority education was also transformed. The mandate of the National and Ethnic Minority Department of the National Office of Public Education Services (OKSZI) - that used to be to organize final examinations and student competitions - became wider with the additional task of organizing in-service teacher training programs. The educational organization system and advisory network of the District Education Centers remained after the dissolution of the Centers. The network was taken over by the National Office of Public Education Services. The National Institute of Public Education's Center for National and Ethnic Minorities was merged to the Minority Office was established instead within the Institute's Center for Program and Curriculum Development. The scope of duties of the Research Center of the Institute was broadened with the tasks related to minority education. Besides this, county pedagogical institutes also accomplish minority education related tasks. The new institution system became able to handle the tasks related to minority education but at the same time certain services remained neglected and the division of labor and cooperation within the system is not functioning effectively yet. In the present system several tasks related to the education of Romany students have not been accomplished. These are the following:
- Curriculum and school level program development,
- Development of textbooks and teaching materials,
- Evaluation of programs, achievement assessment,
- Monitoring of discrimination,
- Advisory and information services,
- Quality assurance and evaluation of developmental programs,
- In-service teacher training and other capacity building programs,
- Higher education entrance examination preparatory programs,
- Development of multicultural and intercultural learning programs,
- Formalized coordination within the diversified support system.
In order to fill in these gaps within the existing system of pedagogical services the Gandhi Foundation (a "public foundation", the maintainer of the Gandhi Gymnasium) recently decided to establish a Roma Education Development Agency.

The current government launched a national quality assurance program in education. Since this program is organized in a way that is compatible with the overall system of pedagogical services (small grants to schools for buying such services), there is a fear that schools that show less initiative, which educate disadvantaged and Roma children will not be reached by these programs. This may result in a widening gap between "good" and "bad" schools. Therefore, it seems to be essential to launch pro-active quality assurance and school improvement programs for these schools.

4.4. Financing

The financing of minority education is not a separate system. It works through many channels and combines the elements of normative (per capita) education financing with the elements of grant giving program financing. In this system the financing and support of the education of Roma students is not separated from the total expenditure of minority education. The normative financing of minority education is based on a complementary per capita sum (the so called "head-quota") attached to the normal per capita support. This complementary head-quota is provided for each student participating in any of the minority education programs. The proportion of complementary minority support has remained practically the same, in-spite of a minor decrease within the total public education budgetary expenditure.

In 1997 the proportion of support provided through thr "call for projects" mechanism increased and the proportion of central developmental resources decreased within the system of resources that could be spent on the development of Roma education. No quality control, professional educational advisory system, in-service teacher training and evaluation were attached to support provided through the granting system. Therefore, these resources preserve existing school practice that is from a pedagogical aspect, not effective and often detrimental. On the other hand, there was a serious shortage of resources deployed for those central developments and provisions that would ensure the conditions for progress.

The Roma minority policies of the decade can be characterized by a special head-quota fetishism: the complementary support for minority education is often considered to be sufficient to deal with these problems. However, about 25-50 percent of the money spent on the normative complementary support of the education of Roma students "finances" wrong pedagogical and education organizational practices. The normative support system is not accompanied by quality assurance, accountability enforcement measures and development services. The financing of special educational institutions (apprenticeship schools, vocational training institutions, etc.) that play an outstanding role in the education of Roma students has also not been solved. Due to the loose regulation of the use of complementary financing, complementary state supports provided to local self-governments usually do not appear as additional resources in the budgets of the schools.

Program grants have a significant role in the operation of Roma education. A smaller proportion of sources serving this purpose is the sum is in the "budget chapter" of the Ministry of Culture and Education, which is separated for the implementation of minority education developmental programs. In the implementation strategy of the 1995 Roma Education Development Program - similarly to the implementation of the NCC - a two-direction financing system of the implementation programs was applied. In 1996 as an effect of the "OKTATgate" (a corruption scandal in connection with the use of budget supports) sources assigned to professional programs became exhausted. The Ministry of Culture and Education "took back" the operative and professional control of minority developmental programs and in practice this resulted in the cessation of these programs. The largest proportion of financial resources deployed for the education of Roma is provided by an application system of different public and private foundations.

5. Different programs for Roma children in primary and secondary education

In primary education (grades 1-8.) Roma students are participating in four typical types of education:
- Integrated education in normal classes with special "catch up" (remedial) programs for Roma children. (A certain proportion of catch up programs organized for segregated Roma classes.)
- Integrated education in normal classes without special minority program.
- Special separate institutions for Roma children.
- Special education (classes or schools) for the mentally handicapped children (children with learning difficulties).

According to the results of an achievement research the knowledge of 8. Grade Roma students enrolled in the first three types of programs show significant differences in five subjects.

The average achievement of 8. grade Roma students enrolled to special minority schools, to Roma catch up programs and to normal classes in five subjects 1988. (Maximum achievement = 100)

These results are closely related to the social status of the students; the social status of the Roma children participating in catch up programs to a significant extent is lower than those of enrolled to normal classes without remedial programs. It justifies the widely shared conviction that the pedagogical added value of these programs is low, they are not able to balance out the impact of low social status on learning outcomes. Further analysis shows that this connection does not prevail in the cases of special Roma institutions, in this respect they are much successful than the catch-up programs. Also, it is clearly demonstrated by the research that catch up programs fail to bridge the gap between the achievement of Roma and non-Roma students, while enrollment to normal classes or Roma minority schools proved to be much more effective.

The special schools for children with learning difficulties are among the dead-end tracks of the Hungarian education system. Enrollment rates in these schools in international comparison are extremely high in Hungary. (This rate in New Zeeland is 0,03%, in Turkey 0,27%, in Finland 0,46%, in Italy 0,92%, in Ireland 1,03%, in Hungary 3,56%.) 30% of these children are attending special classes organized within ordinary primary schools, 70% of them are attending separate special schools. The high level of separation of these children in Hungary is caused by the lack of pedagogical preparedness of normal schools to create an inclusive classroom environment and the lack of culture of differentiated teaching. This is a broader problem that effects a large number of Roma children, as well, because - as it was already mentioned - a typical way of their separation is driving them to special education. From a policy point of view, dealing with this kind of discriminatory practices must be part of an overall strategy aiming at integrating and mainstreaming the education of children with learning difficulties. So far, no such strategy has been developed in Hungary.

At the secondary level there are several Roma minority institutions in Hungary offering alternative short-cuts to vocational qualifications or full secondary degrees, as well as special minority programs. With the exception of the Gandhi Gymnasium and Dormitory in Pécs, these schools offer short cycle vocational programs. Due to the lack of external evaluation of these programs their pedagogical added value can not be assessed. Most of these institutions are private schools depending on casual, sometimes ad hoc public support.

6. Targeted government development programs

Since the issue of the education of Roma children has been on the educational policy agenda throughout the entire decade, governments have felt the necessity to respond to the problem by the development of separate strategies for the development of Roma education. One of the reasons for the birth of these policy documents was the special organizational framework within central governance. Minority related issues were dealt with by a Central Office and separate departments within the Ministry of Culture and Education (after 1988: Ministry of Education). This organizational setting, on the on hand, drove more attention to the matters concerned, but on the other hand this was one of the obstacles to mainstreaming minority, especially Roma education policies.

The Roma education policy papers of the nineties are the following:
- The 1992 governmental proposal of the Ministry of Culture and Education (Ministry of Culture and Education, 1992.);
- The Ministry's 1995 Roma Education Development Program (Ministry of Culture and Education, 1995.)
- The government's decree on the "medium-term measures for the improvement of the life standard of the Roma population" ratified in 1997 (Government, 1997.);
- The Phare Program for "fostering the integration of disadvantaged, especially Roma youth (Ministry of Education, 1999.).

6.1. The 1992 strategy.

The main elements of the 1992 program of the Ministry were the following:
- To establish a regional network of primary and secondary level institutions with catch-up and talent-care programs and with dormitories.
- To establish a system of vocational training, further and re-training for the Roma youth.
- To involve basic romological attainments in teacher training.
- To establish a romological department at each level of tertiary education.
- To ensure the differentiated and appropriate use of complementary normative support.
- To ensure the conditions for the publication of Roma language textbooks.

From the tasks set by this program the following were realized before the 1994 change of government: the establishment of a Romological Department in the Catholic Teacher Training Collage of Zsámbék and a Center for National and Ethnic Minorities within the National Institute of Public Education.

6.2. The 1995 strategy.

Parallel to the Minority Education Development Program started in 1995, a Roma Education Development Program - as part of the previous one - was also started. The aim of the Roma program was to have an effect at several points of the public education system through concerted chance improving and preferential actions:
- to help the school integration of Roma students through the development and support of pre-school, school-preparatory and basic level catch-up programs;
- to improve the adaptability and effectiveness of the schools, primarily through in-service teacher training;
-to increase the proportion of Roma students achieving basic education within the compulsory schooling period through the development and support of catch up programs and the development and operation of a talent-care network;
- to increase the number of Roma students receiving and successfully finishing secondary level education ending with final examination through talent-care, dormitory and scholarship system.

The main elements of the program were the following:
- To support pedagogical, linguistic, ethnographical, historical and other research serving the renewal of the content of Roma education.
-To develop curricula, textbooks and teaching aids to be used in different Roma educational programs and institutions.
- To develop and support pre-school and school-preparatory programs improving school readiness.
- To develop and support catch-up programs.
- To establish a national network of talent-care and dormitory system.
- To extend the system of public education and tertiary education scholarships.
- To support teacher training and other tertiary education programs.
- To organize and support the in-service training of teachers, social workers and educational advisors.
- To support Roma minority educational institutions.
- To develop and support intercultural educational programs.
- To develop pedagogical-professional services.

The implementation of the program stopped in 1997. Certain elements of the program (a part of content development, the extension of in-service teacher training, the establishment of the Gandhi Public Foundation, the establishment of the basic structure of a consistent support system, a part of the research, the reorganization of the system of background institutions, etc.) had been accomplished while other elements (institution developmental program, coordination of the financing system, development of teaching methods, textbook and teaching aid developments, establishment of a network of experts and a system of evaluation, etc.) had not. The Soros Foundation's Roma Educational Development Program "took over" certain elements of the program. In this strategy some issues were not given the appropriate emphasis. These are for example the language question and the problem of segregation.

The Ministry of Labor which was responsible for the system of vocational training till 1998, has not yet prepared a Roma vocational educational development program. It has not had the existing programs and operating institution models evaluated, has not formed a concept with the different enterprise developmental and social programs and about the starting of Roma vocational training programs combined with general education. Neither has a governmental program for the tertiary level education been developed, although certain tertiary education related elements appeared in the different documents.

6.3. The 1997 strategy.

In the 1997 program of the government, education related tasks were formally based on the 1995 Roma Education Developmental Program of the Ministry of Culture and Education. Actually there was a shift of emphasis at several points in the education policy of the Ministry and several elements of the 95 program in the governmental decree were put-off until after the 1998 elections. In the program approved by the government, some of the short-term measures were the "further development" of the system of scholarships and tuition fee support. The content development program was limited to the development of sample curricula and the institution developmental program was limited to the support of the already existing institutions. In the governmental decree the weight of social supports generally increased while the development program focusing on the whole of the public education grew weaker.

6.4. The 1999 strategy.

The current government reconsidered its Roma education strategy within the framework of a "Phare Program for "fostering the integration of disadvantaged, especially Roma youth". (The total budget of the program is 9,6 M Ecu) The objectives of the program are the following:
- Increasing the level of basic education of disadvantaged, especially Roma communities.
- Preventing the social exclusion of disadvantaged, especially Roma communities, strengthening social cohesion.
- Fostering the social integration of Roma minority, supporting the development of its middle strata.

The program consists of three main components that are served by several grant-giving actions:
1. component: Reducing primary education dropout rates.
- Development of regional cooperation consortia and service packages in order to reduce primary education dropout rates.
- Launching experimental education programs via regional consortia in order to combat school failure.
- Training of nurses for female Roma for the kindergartens of small rural settlements.
- Development of special kindergarten programs for Roma children.
- Incorporation of special courses of ethnic and social problems to the pre-service training of teachers.

2. component: Special secondary education. (Institutional support for schools undertaking the education of disadvantaged groups.)
- Development of special catch up programs for disadvantaged children in order to lead them back to secondary education.
- Strengthening the links between general and vocational education in order to foster the attainment of a first qualification for students consisting of disadvantaged groups.
- Building a modular system of vocational training and active labour market intervention programs for young adults consisting to disadvantaged groups.

3.component: Improving the social position and fostering the integration of Roma minority. (Social measures and support for talented Roma students)
- Development of educational provisions designed to foster the participation of Roma students in secondary education (remedial programs, talent care programs, extracurricular activities, preparation for entrance examinations), and the further development of existing secondary education institutions and dormitory houses that foster the progress and social integration of Roma students.
- Support for talent care programs and post-secondary vocational programs for those Roma students who complete their upper secondary education.

In comparison to the educational practice in Hungary or to the previous strategies this strategy does not contain new elements. In fact, the program opens additional resources for already existing initiatives. However, it almost completely ignores those matters, that are related to ethnic problems, such as minority content of education (language and culture) or discrimination. Also, this program is a poor grant-giving program that builds on the initiatives and capacities of the schools. This way of policy implementation has proved to be ineffective in Hungary.

7. Overall evaluation of policies (Summary)

- Partly due to the generous legislation on minority rights and partly due to the pressure of international organizations (such as the European Union) problems in relation to the education of Roma are constantly on the educational policy agenda in Hungary. Education is considered to be the point of departure for any attempts aiming at fostering the integration of Roma into mainstream society.

- Since the education reform agenda was to respond to the huge problems of systemic transformation of education during the entire decade, no sufficient attention was paid to the specific problems of children with special needs and/or minority affiliation. As a consequence, Roma education policies were marginalized, the design of mainstream policies and targeted Roma educational policies were not always harmonized.

- The ideological alignment of the different governments influenced their approach to the education of Roma children. As a consequence there has been no real continuity in policies. All governments start to reconsider the policies from the basics and no policies survive the full implementation. In addition, there is a tendency towards policy reductionism; one or another component of the problems are emphasized that results in a complete lack of holistic approach to the problems in concern.

- In terms of conceptual basis of policies there is a permanent shift throughout the decade from the combination of ethnic and ethnically neutral approaches towards a pure ethnically neutral approach. This results in the simplification of the problem. Also, there is a more and more strong criticism of government policies because the rejection of dealing with discrimination. In spite of this shift, so far no government strategies have been able to put the problem into a broader equity framework.

- So far none of the Hungarian governments were able to develop a coherent strategy that is designed to address all of the underlying reasons for the school failure of Romany children. As a consequence, there is a lack of synergy in the use of different policy tools, such as financing, regulation or development.

- Due to the traditional Central-Eastern European "supply driven" approach to education in general, Roma education policies tend to focus on resources and structural issues, while the developmental components of policies are weak. Therefore, the ineffective use of financial resources is a much bigger problem in Hungary, than the small amount of public money that is deployed for the education of Roma children.

- There hasn't been developed or carried out any governmental educational strategy in Hungary that was designed to assure the language and cultural rights of the Roma community and/or aimed at fighting discrimination in education. Also, the existing educational provisions are far from being effective in bridging the educational attainment gap between Roma and the majority.

- As a result of the lack of deliberate, state initiated and funded development no complex program-packages are made on any level of the education of Roma children that could be offered for the institutions and that contain curricula, textbooks, workbooks, teacher's guidebook and in-service training program for teachers.

- There are serious obstacles to informed and high quality policy development for Roma. The most important obstacles are the lack of statistical data, the lack of measurement of learning outcomes of Roma children, the lack of program evaluation, the lack of real involvement of Roma community into policy consultation and the lack of awareness of ethnic problems among experts and policy makers.

- Also, there are serious obstacles to policy implementation. The most important obstacles are the low absorption capacity of the systemic environment of schools, as well as the low absorption capacity of the schools, themselves, and the low awareness of ethnic problems among teachers, school managers and local decision makers.

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