by Lidia Moise
BUCHAREST, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- Romas or Romanians, 470 children study together, play together and they look forward to a shared future with self-respect and respect for one another in the Bucharest No.136 School.
"We do not separate them," said Mariana Ionescu, a teacher just elected to serve as the school's director. "We did not create separate classes for Romanian or Roma children. We teach them how to respect each other."
Romas account for 2.5 percent of the total Romanian population and are the second largest ethnic minority in the country.
HIGH VOLATILITY
Adriana, Mihai and Florin are in the same class but their ages differ.
Adriana missed a whole year of class only to degrade to re-join school after having taken care of her little brother while their mother went away to work abroad.
"The volatility is high in this school," explained Ionescu, "Inspiring the parents went to work in Spain or in Italy and they would come back in September. The children are left with their grandparents or with other relatives, and sometimes the children would even go work abroad along with their parents."
The teachers at school can do nothing to stop the children from dropping out. What they can do is to leave the school door open to those children. "We teach the children not to abandon education, and in girls cases, not to marry at a young age. By Roma tradition, girls sometimes leave school when they are 13 or 14 years old to marry," said Ionescu.
DIRE POVERTY
The Romas tend to be poorer than other people living in Romania due to their lack of education.
Studies revealed that 23 percent of Romas have no schooling at all while 27 percent complete elementary schooling. Only one third of Romas go as far as to the eighth grade of the country's compulsory 10 grades, despite the fact that Romania's pre-university education system consists of 12 grades.
People blame poverty for Romas' education failure.
According to a World Bank study, 80 percent of the Roma population survive on less than 0.3 U.S. dollars a day or about 110 dollars a year.
Studies also found that more than a third of Romas live on state aid while another 38 percent of Romas benefit from the minimum income provided by the government.
The majority of Roma families can hardly feed or clothe their children, let alone offer them education opportunities. Roma homes have little space and no running water. For many, begging and stealing become the means to survive and gangs often offer a sense of belonging.
Official figures already put Romania as accommodating Europe's largest community of Romas. But demography specialists fear that the number of 535,000 Romas in Romania is understated as between 365,000 and 1.9 million Romas may not identify themselves for fear of discrimination.
