Roma in Hungary - Political Discrimination

Political Discrimination

In Hungary, 'only 0.3 per cent of Roma hold post-secondary school diplomas and only one in four complete primary school', says Professor Miklos Haraszti of the University of California's Study Centre in Budapest. Their jobless rate is over 60 per cent, more than six times the Hungarian average. And their life expectancy—a vital measure describing health, economic and social conditions—trails the national average by as much as ten years.

The gates of secondary schooling are at last wide open to Romani students, observes educational sociologist Istvan Kemeny, the author of pioneering fieldwork, in the January issue of the authoritative journal Hungarian Quarterly. But the educational gap between the Roma and the Hungarian ethnic majority 'has not narrowed over the past 40 years... And even today, only one in five Romani families could afford to send their children to secondary schools'.