The 8th meeting of the Council of Europe Dialogue with Roma and Traveller civil society (10-11 october 2019) will focus on fighting school segregation through Inclusive education.

Education offers the means with which socially and economically marginalized children can break the poverty cycle. Access to quality and inclusive education is at the heart of the fundamental rights of all children.

Yet numerous studies and reports reaffirm that Roma children encounter obstacles in accessing this human right. Educational achievements have been historically very poor across Europe for Roma and Traveller children. Although considerable advances were made for Roma in education during the socialist and communist period in some member states, the disadvantagement of Roma children manifests itself today in every aspect of schooling and has deepened over the last two decades.

Despite the good practices for promoting the inclusion of Roma children attending education and the positive legal developments, what emerge are increased patterns of segregation of Roma in education, low progress in access to quality education and continued systematic routing of Roma children to special schools. The rise in school achievement has remained modest where only a small percentage of Roma children, in particular Roma girls, finish primary education successfully.

The 8th meeting of the Council of Europe Dialogue with Roma and Traveller civil society will focus on fighting school segregation through Inclusive education with the aim to:

• Discuss and understand school segregation and social exclusion and its impact on the community and on the society in general;
• Present an overview of legislation and policy measures which are directly aimed at or may have an impact on desegregating schools;
• Identify cooperative projects where civil society organistaions can play a significant role in promoting and supporting inclusive educational approaches;
• Develop synergies with human rights defenders and institutions for the effective monitoring of desegregation strategies and actions plans at national and local level for school inclusion.

8th Dialogue meeting - Working documents

• Agenda of the 8th Dialogue meeting [ROMani]
• Concept Note: Fighting School Segregation through Inclusive Education [ROMani]
• Reference texts and standards to the Right of Education
• Speaker and Contributor Profiles  
• Welcoming address by Gilles Heyvaert, Permanent Representative of Belgium to the Council of Europe, Chair of the Committee of Ministers’ Rapporteur Group on Social and Health Questions (GR-SOC) (only in french)
• Keynote speech by Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos, President of the European Court of Human Rights
• Closing remarks by Hallvard Gorseth, Head of Department a.i. for the Roma and Travellers Team, Council of Europe
• Conclusions and recommendations of the 8th Dialogue meeting