INTERNATIONAL AND NATIONAL CONTEXT OF THE PROJECT INSETROM ROMANIA

1. INSETROM ROMANIA INSETRom, 134018-LLP-1-2007-1-CY-COMENIUS-CMP Professor Vasile Chis, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Olga Markus Babes Bolyai University Cluj Napoca Romania Turin, November 2009

2. THE AIMS OF THE INSETROM-ROMANIA PROJECT • Our project has undertaken all the work activities and objectives agreed by the eight countries partnership. • This presentation is focused on specific aims of the project, as follows: • To reveal the connections of INSETROM project with the Romanian Comprehensive Program “Access to education for disadvantaged groups with focus on Roma population”. • To identify and describe relevant characteristics of Roma education in Romania of 2000s • To disseminate in the scientific community the project data collected from teachers and parents from three schools located in Cluj County of Romania.

3. INTERNATIONAL AND NATIONAL CONTEXT OF THE PROJECT INSETROM ROMANIA The project was developed under the directing influence of the following two work lines: 1. National strategy of the Romanian Ministry of Education on Access to education for disadvantaged groups with focus on Roma students, and 2. Activities planned within InsetRom application for all countries involved in the project, activities described in the Work Packages (WP) no. 1 - 9.

4. CONTINUITY AND COMPLEMENTARITY BETWEEN INSETROM AND ROMANIAN STRATEGY ON ROMA EDUCATION • Years 2000s represent in Romania a period of important reform in the field of education for minorities. Education for disadvantaged groups with a focus on Roma is a large scale Program. BBU was involved in this program by undertaking the following types of activity: • Training of school mediators: 150 school mediators were certificated with the contribution of UBB teaching staff from Dept. of education. • Initial training of Roma teachers for primary and pre-school education: 61 Roma graduates passed the Licences final examin 2008 - 2009, and other 20 Roma teachers will graduate in 2010. • In-Service Teacher Training. An increasing number of Roma teachers are enrolled in I-S TT programs every year. Details regarding Romanian strategy on Roma education will be offered by Professor Gheorghe Sarău

5. RELEVANT DATA ON EDUCATION OF ROMA IN ROMANIA OF 2000s Referring to thedata we presented at the beginning of INSETROM project, the following picture is relevant for Roma education: • Low degree of kindergarten attendance in Roma children. As empirical data shows, more then 50% of the children in Roma communities do not attend kindergarten. Therefore, when entering school, Roma children are already disadvantaged as their basic socializing skills, fine motors skills, and overall school prerequisites are poor. • Massive drop out rate during the fifth or sixth school grade. For instance, in a school (Cluj County), out of the 20 Roma children enrolled in the first grade, only two of them made it to the eighth grade. Similarly,in other school (Mures County), out of over 20 Roma students enrolled in the first grade, only 4 made it to the eighth grade.

6. 6. Outcomes of Teacher Training Program 1. Summary of project activities and outcomes 2.A. How do teachers regarded Roma students before training? 5. Parents needs and necessary learning experiences ROMANIA INSETROM RESEARCH DATA 2.B. How do teachers described students’ behavior 4. Information from Parent Interviews 2.C.Training in teaching cultural and language minorities 3. Teacher training needs and basics of curriculum 2.D. Teachers’ perspectives on Roma parents

7. SUMMARY OF PROJECT ACTIVITIES AND OUTCOMES • WP1: Financial issues. Interim Report, November, 10th, 2008 (20 pages). • WP2: Needs assessment plan. a). InsetRom Romania. The context of the study on Roma education, posted on www.iaie.org/insetrom/ ,14 pages. • b). Interview schedules translated and adapted, posted on www.iaie.org/insetrom/ ,10 pages. c). Collecting of data from teachers, Roma parents and Roma pupils. Analyses of collected data (223 pages). • WP3: Reports on Needs assessment. InsetRom needs assessment report, June, 13th, 2008, 15 pages. • WP4: In service Training curriculum. Translation of curriculum modules to Romanian language, 70 pages. • WP5: Training. Designing and implementation of the training program (Seven modules, 24 hrs.). • WP6: Teacher Interventions. Designing and implementation of Action Plans. • WP7: Reflections. Post-training questionnaire and Modules evaluation. • WP8: Evaluation Report on Training Program, February, 17th, 2009, 4 pages. • WP9: Promotion and dissemination. Summer Courses, August 2009. Exchange experience with staff of Rovira i Virgili University, Spain, October 2009.

8. 2. BRIEF PRESENTATION OF THE RELEVANT PROJECT DATA- TEACHERS - 2.A. How do teachers regarded Roma students’ learning progress and participation in school? • Roma children are integrated in mixed groups, but often they are part of lower level groups. Presence of Roma children in classrooms does not affect teaching, but affects the group work. • Teaching is delivered in the same manner for all pupils, with few moments of individualized or personalized instruction. • In general, teachers feel themselves well prepared regarding the teaching of any kind of students. Their judgments are based on teacher centered teaching perspective. They feel secure in the teaching model given by the school paradigm of “Students Must Adapt to the School”. When the new orientation of “School and Teachers Must Adapt to the Children Needs” is promoted, teachers become unsecure and start lacking confidence in their teaching abilities.

9. 2. BRIEF PRESENTATION OF THE RELEVANT PROJECT DATA- TEACHERS - 2.B. How do teachers described the behaviour of Roma students in school? • Roma pupils are careless, they have no control, they react instinctively and aggressively. • They have no shame, they have behavioural disorders, they break the school rules, they speak when they feel like, they refuse to learn, they are children with problems. • Roma pupils have profound learning difficulties due to the lack of family support, they refuse to follow any kind of remedial or supportive programs. • Some of Roma pupils are well integrated in the school program. • Some of them have good school attendance.

10. 2. BRIEF PRESENTATION OF THE RELEVANT PROJECT DATA- TEACHERS - 2.C. To what extent did teachers receive training in teaching cultural and language minorities? • Despite of the long teaching experience, no teacher had a particular training in the matter of teaching Roma children. Teachers knew quite a little about the culture of Roma people, and this was not helpful for their work. It is obvious that the teachers’ knowledge about Roma people is surface knowledge: dance, music, marriage and clothes; they lack the deep knowledge about the Roma cultural and spiritual life.

11. 2. BRIEF PRESENTATION OF THE RELEVANT PROJECT DATA- TEACHERS – 2.D. Teachers’ perspectives on Roma parents • Roma parents are not willing to cooperate with schools. They do not offer enough learning support to their children at home. • The most serious difficulties mentioned by teachers are: lack of the ability to communicate, lack of intellectual training, lack of interest in children schooling, the refusal to visit the school. • Teachers believe that Roma parents should supervise their children more; should not stop their children to attend school; should be more interested into schooling. • On teachers view, Roma parents wait for the school to solve most of their difficulties; Roma parents believes are that teachers are difficult people, they ask too much work from the children.

12. 3. TEACHERS TRAINING NEEDS AND CURRICULUM

13. 4. INFORMATION FROM PARENT INTERVIEWS The empirical evidences are showing that: • Roma parents get married very early, some of them at 14 or 15 years old. We did not found the so called children marriage at very early ages such as 10 or 12 years old. • Roma parents have more children – three, up to five or eight – at a time when they are very young, not mature enough, not employed and unable to support such a big family. • Parents are satisfied with the relation with school and teachers, but their perceptions of things remained superficial, as: teacher registered my child into school, school assured books and clothes, I feel welcomed by school etc. • Roma parents’ expectations from their children attending school are defined in concrete words: to learn better; to be good child, to become educated, to become a good worker.

14. 5. Summary of Roma parents needs

15. 6. OUTCOMES OF THE TEACHER TRAINING PROGRAM • Most teachers evaluated the training courses as either ‘Excellent’ or ‘Good’. Out of the total number of 75 answers received, 50 answers (66,66%) are Excellent, 20 answers (26,66%) are Good and 5 answers (6,66%) are Poor. The above figures show that the modules and trainers meet teachers’ expectations to a great extent. • The training modules that received the highest appreciation from the participating teachers were the following: 1.Teacher-Roma Parent Communication and Parental Involvement; 2. Stereotypes and prejudice; 3. Creating an inclusive classroom and classroom management, and 4. Roma culture and history. • Most teachers appreciated the modules as being useful in their teaching. From the total of 35 answers received, 28 answers (80%) evaluated the modules as most valuable and useful, 7 answers (20%) as least valuable. The answers given by teachers show that the modules where selected according to the teachers` training needs. • Details regarding training courses will be given by Mr. Sebastian Rasinar at the InsetRom Conference Exhibition.

16. INSETROM ROMANIAINSETRom, 134018-LLP-1-2007-1-CY-COMENIUS-CMP Thanks for your patience! Professor Vasile Chis, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Olga Markus Babes Bolyai University Cluj Napoca Romania Turin, November 2009