Ljubljana, 5 February 2014 – The Ministry of Economic Development and Technology, acting as the Managing Authority for EU Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund, issued a decision awarding EU funds for the project “Acquiring knowledge together – achieving the objectives of the Strategy for Education of Roma in the Republic of Slovenia”. The project, which will be implemented by the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport and which is worth 1.5 million euros, will be co-financed under the European Social Fund in the amount of 1.3 million euros.
The objective of the project is to develop and upgrade innovative and alternative forms of educational work for a more successful integration of the Roma children and pupils in the education system. The activities will primarily be carried out in areas inhabited by members of the Roma community, as previous evaluations have indicated that raising the social and cultural capital of the Roma community is essential for the successful integration of the Roma children. Special emphasis is given to the development of family literacy, implementation of various forms of learning assistance for the Roma pupils and promotion of activities and programmes for cooperation between the professional staff, the Roma parents and children, and their cooperation with the non-Roma population and the development of the professional staff.
The project includes extra-curricular activities for the Roma children, pupils and students, which will be carried out in centres of the Centre of curricular and extracurricular activities and in the Roma education incubators, as well as for the activities of the Roma assistants. The task of the latter is to help the Roma children overcome emotional and language barriers, establish and maintain contact between parents and schools, work with children in the Roma settlements and the Roma educational incubators.
The project seeks to increase the long-term integration of the Roma children in different forms of pre-school programmes to achieve greater success of the Roma children in the education system, reduce school drop-out among the Roma children and to reduce prejudices among the professional staff in schools and kindergartens.
More information: Ministry of Education, Science and Sport.