KOSICE (Slovakia): The isolation, poverty and discrimination suffered by the three million Roma or gypsies of eastern and central Europe is about to land on the doorstep of the European Union as it takes in new members.

Experts say those problems stem from the lack of education, or the poor quality of education available to the Roma.

They have only a minute chance of entering higher education because of segregation from an early age, inferior schooling, absenteeism and, above all, their high drop-out rate.

In Bulgaria, for example, Roma make up 20 per cent of the children entering school at seven, but only two percent of students aged between 15 and 19 in secondary schools.

“The education of the Roma is the key problem from which all their difficulties stem,” said Mikhail Ivanov of the Bulgarian national council for ethnic and demographic questions.

Segregation is a problem in all the countries, but the problems are particularly acute in Romania, which has a gypsy population of 1.5 million, of whom one in three are illiterate.

“In many establishments I have visited recently, Roma children are made to study in separate classrooms that are often insalubrious,” said Costel Bercus, of the Romani Criss association in Bucharest.

“The decision to separate the Roma children from their Romanian comrades is taken by the school principals in violation of the law,” he said. “They assign the children to classes according to the colour of their skin.”

Bercus said a child constrained to study in one of the classrooms for Roma has “practically no chance of evolving and integrating into society.”

In the Czech republic, the Nova Skola (new school) association estimates 75 per cent of Roma children are sent to special classes for problem children. In Bulgaria, Roma are sometimes sent to schools for the mentally retarded because they cannot speak the Bulgarian language, and about 70 per cent are sent to inferior schools that have seen little improvement since Communist days.

Under pressure from the EU to end such discrimination, countries claim to be making some effort to deal with the problem.—AFP