Bulgaria Won't Introduce Education Standards for Roma Kids

Society » EDUCATION | September 28, 2011, Wednesday // 17:07
Bulgaria: Bulgaria Won't Introduce Education Standards for Roma Kids Ignatov has described the syndicate's idea as "segregation". Photo by BGNES

Bulgaria's Education Minister Sergey Ignatov has stated he is against the idea of introducing "education standards" for children from the Roma minority in the country, as a labor confederation has suggested.

According to the Podkrepa Labor Confederation's education syndicate, Roma children are massively allowed to pass grades in school even when they do not cover the necessary criteria and they receive no sanctions whatsoever for their absence. The syndicate has implied that educational criteria are too low when it comes to Roma students.

However, Ignatov has described the syndicate's idea as "segregation", claiming that Roma children are not "privileged" in Bulgaria's schools.

"We have problems not only with Roma children, we are putting efforts into making all children in Bulgaria more knowledgeable," the Minister added.

Ethnic tensions grew in Bulgaria over the last few days after the murder of Bulgarian youngster, Angel Petrov, 19, who was deliberately run over by a mini van, driven by a member of notorious mafia boss Kiril Rashkov in the southern village of Katunitsa.

The protests culminated Saturday night into the burning of Rashkov's properties by football hooligans from Plovdiv, which is near to Katunitsa, and by football club fans from the capital Sofia and the southern city of Stara Zagora.

On Monday and Tuesday night, protests followed in many major Bulgarian cities, including the capital Sofia. Nearly 300 people in total were arrested by the police after the two nights of rallies that unfortunately involved what has been perceived as ethnic hatred.

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Tags: education, Roma, Sergey Ignatov, ethnic tensions, Katunitsa, Kiril Rashkov

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