Brussels, 20/05/2011 (Agence Europe) - The Education Council of 20 May adopted a recommendation on policies for reducing the early school leaving rate, and held a debate on prevention policies set in place by member states to combat early school leaving among children from disadvantaged homes, especially Roma children. Only the United Kingdom abstained from voting on the text due to a “specific point, which does not question the resolve to combat early school leaving”, Education Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou said. The Hungarian minister for education, Rózsa Hoffmann, said for her part that reducing the drop-out rate is a matter that only concerns the world of education. In order to reach the targets set, she said, all spheres must be involved and the necessary financial resources must be guaranteed.
Children under 15 years of age make up 35.7% of the Roma population, as opposed to the European average of 15.7%. The school drop-out rate among Roma children is very high, Commissioner Vassiliou said. She went on to point out that one must not ignore the potential of these children, that each and every one of them deserves a quality education that meets their needs and allows them to develop their talents. This should help to put an end to the socio-economic inequalities that perpetuate from one generation to the next. Vassiliou welcomed the conclusions adopted the day before at the Employment and Social Affairs Council for a strategic framework on the integration of the Roma, completing comments made by the education ministers. The reduction of early school leaving is one of the two European Commission priorities for education in the EUROPE 2020 strategy. The aim is to drop below the 10% drop-out rate by 2020. At present, the rate stands at 14.4% on average with strong variations between member states (30% in some and only 5% in others). Efforts being made to reduce the rate must aim in particular at young people from immigrant backgrounds whose school drop-out rate is twice as high as that of the other children whose families originated in the EU. Androulla Vassiliou's statement invites member states to set effective policies in place, proposing preventive measures to prevent the conditions that foster early school leaving from taking root. The primary responsibility of member states is to adopt a targeted approach by fixing EU-scale objectives for the integration of the Roma, in four essential areas: - access to education, employment, healthcare and housing. Vassiliou also announced that she planned to launch a programme for the next three years in order to train around one thousand people from Roma communities, who will act as mediators in order to ensure the liaison between their communities and the social and educational services. It is now time to act, the commissioner said. (I.L./transl.jl)