A special class for children coming from a Roma community or even a separate school building that only has classrooms for Roma students: These are two very specific examples of what international human rights organizations call segregated education in Slovakia, a problem they say Roma pupils face in many parts of the country. Two recent reports state Roma students in some primary and secondary schools in Slovakia face segregation. Of these, one report is based on joint research conducted by the European Union and a United Nations agency, and the other by Amnesty International (AI), a global NGO.

Slovakia's Education Ministry, however, rejected the substance of both reports, denying the existence of Roma segregation in schools, and said the ministry has sought to prevent conduct of the kind described.

Slovakia ranked among the worst of 11 EU countries in educating young Roma, according to a report on the status of Roma published jointly by the EU's Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). The report states less than 20 percent of Roma under the age of 24 living in Slovakia have graduated from secondary school, compared with almost 90 percent of their non-Roma peers.

The report also found the status of Roma citizens in the areas of employment, education, housing and health, on average, is worse than non-Roma living in proximity, based on surveys of Roma and non-Roma sharing similar community infrastructure and labor market conditions.

The surveys involved 22,203 Roma and non-Roma families living in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Spain, who provided information on a total of 84,287 household members.
"Roma continue to experience discrimination and are not sufficiently aware of their rights guaranteed by EU law," the report states.

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