INCLUSION OF ROMA

As part of the call for short-term projects of special interest for sustainable development in the AP Vojvodina in 2021, the project “Identification of socio-demographic specifics and new problems of inclusion of the Roma population in the educational process during the pandemic Covid-19”. The project manager is prof. dr. Anđelija Ivkov Džigurski, and members of the project team are prof. dr Ljubica Ivanović Bibić, prof. dr. Smiljana Đukičin Vucković and Dr. Jelena Milanković Jovanov.

The Covid-19 pandemic deepened the already manifested exclusion of the Roma population, which is facing new problems in the education system, namely: the inability to maintain social contacts between peers, greater drop-out of children from the education system (drop out), lack of professional support in learning (low educational status of parents) and the inability to learn distance (technical impossibilities). Thus, the subject of the research is focused on an interdisciplinary approach to new problems of the Roma population during the pandemic, and analysis of the consequences deepened inclusion can leave for the future.

The aim of the research is to identify and map existing problems of inclusion in the education process and socialization of the Roma population, caused or deepened due to the pandemic in the AP Vojvodina.

The following will be identified:

– Problems in establishing social contacts for lower grade students (as only 7% are covered by preschool education, many make such social contacts only in 1. class);

– Problems in learning due to the transition to distance learning in the upper grades of primary school due to the lack of basic conditions for its implementation.

– Problems of organization of adult education.

The project would determine the dropout rates of Roma children from the education system due to the impossibility of realization and monitoring of teaching in the conditions of a pandemic. Identification is also expected the main causes of these problems and giving specific proposals for solving them. Cooperation with The Roma National Council and the Office for Roma Inclusion will devise a mechanism for better education and assistance to children who are deprived of regular education due to the pandemic, as well as assist employees in education and to find solutions in each situation as for primary school students’ school, so for the elderly.