
Expert opinion of the Slovak Equality Body on the intention of the Ministry of Education to establish a Roma national school in the village of Rakúsy.
In the summer, we contacted the Slovak Equality Body – Slovak National Centre for Human Rights with a request to assess the intention of the Ministry of Education, Research, Development and Youth of the Slovak Republic to establish a pilot Roma national school in the village of Rakúsy. We asked for the assessment in particular in the context of the temporary special measures presented by the Ministry, the beneficiary of which was to be the Municipality of Rakúsy as the founder of the school.
The Centre, as the national anti-discrimination body, recently issued an expert opinion in which it stated, inter alia:
neither the pilot project nor the temporary special measures presented can be considered temporary special measures as provided for in anti-discrimination legislation;
the Centre reproached the Ministry of Education for its non-systemic approach to addressing the elimination of inequalities, since as a central government body it should implement systemic measures in general and not only in a specific school;
temporary special measures cannot be implemented as testing, i.e. in the sense of testing means of eliminating inequalities in order to ensure equality of opportunity in practice;
We believe that the Ministry of Education will respect the conclusions of the Centre and will reconsider its intention to establish a Roma national school or will set it up in such a way that it complies with the legal requirement to observe the principle of equal treatment.
You can read the expert opinion in Slovak only here.