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The hearing „Education and traning: tools for Roma integration” organized by the The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) orginized on Januray 14, 2011,gathered both representatives of various institutions and Roma activists tro share the tendencies about recent policy development, good practices and ways to continue from now on regarding closing the educational gap between Roma and the rest of the European society. The meeting was chaired by Anne-Marie Sigmund President of the Economic and Social Committee from 2004 to 2006 and rapporteur on the EESC opinion. The first session of the hearing dedicated to the institutions clearly outlined three important tendencies:

·         The Roma issue is an European issues and each country should take its responsibilities;

·         Although education is a national competency EU is going to play more active role in promoting educational integration for Roma; more active role in raising the motivation of Member States to devote special efforts to closing the educational gap between Roma and non Roma; and more stronger monitoring role on how this has been put into practice

·         Roma community and civil society should be actively involved in all processes and policies for Roma integration and in this repsect the EESC has the ambition to be a bridge between the institutions and the Roma NGOs, especially regarding edcation

In her presentation Laura Cassio (DG Education and Culture) again pointed out to the key role of education for Roma inclusion. The 2008 year of intercultural education showed us that we did not have a single common interpretation of the word „intercultural” – Mrs. Cassion said. But intercultural it is about respect and knowledge: knowing about the Others and respecting them for being different.  This would result in the establishing of a groups of Member States experts working on social inclusion in education and a special focus on Roma in the 2012 Framework research program. Dr. Melinda Horvath who represented the Hungarian Presidency to the EU stressed that the social inclusion issue will be one of the priority of the Hungarian presidency but this needs complexity in priority areas: education, employment, health and housing. This will be included in the Council Conclusions to be published in May 2011 together with several other key points: strong commitments for Roma integration at EU and national levels; better use of national and EU resources, and setting up un indicator system. The next speaker Olof Olafsdottir (Director of Education and Languages, Council of Europe) presented the efforts of the Council of Europe towards creating a tool kit for intercultural education with special focus of their policy on early education.

The second session presented mostly the experience the good practices of Roma NGOs from different EU countries in the field of Roma education: Soraya Post presented the Swedish experience; Ghislaine Durnad presented the experience of French Roma and Travellers. Isidro Rodriguez shared the experience of Fundacion Secretariato Gitano (Spain) with the campaign „When I grow up i want to become...”  for motivating Roma children to set higher educational goals. Teodora Krumova presented the experience of Center Amalipe with promoting intercultural education and introducing Roma culture and history as an elective subject for all kids in school (Roma and non-Roma). She refered back to the words by Laura Cassio that intercultural is about knowing and respecting each other. That is why programs like ‘Roma culture in school’ is highly needed to promote tolerance, and create a welcoming school environment.

A vivid discussion followed the presentations especially those made by the representatives of the institutions. Nevertheless, some of the reactions from the audience proved once again the European Commission has taken the right approach insisting that each Member States should prepare its action plan for the Roma social inclusion.