How the Czech Educational System has Failed the Roma Children and why it Keeps Failing them

Abstract

Recently the Czech Republic has been widely criticised for segregating Roma children in schools for mentally handicapped
children. Originally the main problem was in the special schools where Roma children were disproportionally placed on the basis of light
mental disabilities they were supposed to suffer from. In 2005 these special schools were abolished by law, however, in reality these
schools have not been closed and only change occurred in fact in their name – thus being named ‘practical schools’ instead. On the
other hand, it would be unfair to claim that the representatives of Czech educational system haven´t done anything that can be seen as
an attempt for integrating Roma children as well as children with different special educational needs. In this paper we will show what has
been done in order to bring some improvement to educational outcomes of children with special needs and at the same time we will try
to analyze why the results aren´t as good as it would have been expected. This analysis will be based on our long-lasting interest in the
topic of education of Roma children and on 10 semi-structured interviews with the teachers from the school in Brno, where Roma
children are the absolute majority of the pupils. In spite of this school not being labelled ‘practical’, we will find some unexpected
similarities, even though at first glance it can be perceived as any other ‘ordinary’ school.