THE IMPACT OF THE PANDEMIC ON THE EDUCATION OF ROMA AND EGYPTIANS: PASSING RATE IS DECREASING, AND THERE ARE NO ANSWERS

ONLY 11 PERCENT OF "BOŽIDAR VUKOVIĆ PODGORIČANIN" SCHOOL STUDENTS FROM MINORITY POPULATIONS FINISHED THE EIGHTH GRADE THIS SCHOOL YEAR, WHILE 92.30 PERCENT OF RE STUDENTS PASSED THE SAME CLASS LAST YEAR. THE COUNTRY STILL DOES NOT HAVE A FUNDAMENTAL ANALYSIS OF THE CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE FAILURE OF THE SYSTEM

Only 11 percent of students from the Roma and Egyptian population finished the eighth grade at the Elementary School "Božidar Vuković Podgoričanin" this school year. Only a year earlier, as many as 92.30 percent of them successfully passed that class. In the 2019/2020 school year, when the pandemic started, the passing rate of students from this population was 100 percent in all schools, like all other children, because the Ministry of Education (MOE) made recommendations that year that all students should automatically pass the grades because of Covid. 

The pass rate of students of the Roma and Egyptian population in 2021/2022 in the Elementary School "Božidar Vuković Podgoričanin" decreased in all other grades from fourth to higher compared to the 2020/2021 school year. Thus, the pass rate in the seventh grade dropped from 81.57 percent last year to only 17.86 percent this year and from 88.13 percent to -22 percent in the sixth grade. In the ninth - from 100 to 45 percent.

According to the dean of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Montenegro, Tatjana Novović, in the circumstances of covid-19, the current issues became more severe. They made the status of these families and their children even more vulnerable and complicated.

"There are several reasons for this - lower incomes, inadequate living conditions, missing digital aids for the inclusion of students from the Roma and Egyptian population in distance learning." Not to mention the preschool context, which was "less important" for all children. Therefore, it is expected that the results of studies, which are already quite questionable, will be even weaker", Novović said for the Center for Investigative Journalism of Montenegro (CIN-CG).

Representatives of the elementary school "Božidar Vuković Podgoričanin" also stated the pandemic as the main reason for the poor results. In this school, in the Konik settlement in the capital, of the total number of students, 50 percent or 585 students are from the RE population.

That school is not the only one where the data regarding the success of Roma and Egyptian students is worrying.

"The average final success has worsened due to many reasons: online classes, lack of digital aids - phones, internet, tablets for students, lack of possibility to take online classes, as well as to organize supplementary classes and the like," Nikola Raičević, the coordinator for prevention of early school dropout and classroom teacher at Elementary School "Radomir Mitrović" in Berane, confirmed for CIN-CG.

In that school, which 154 students from minority populations attend, the mentoring project in cooperation implemented for three years with the NGO Mladi Romi, aimed at helping students master the school lessons, has proven to be good. In the first two years, eighth and ninth-grade students were included in the mentorship, while this school year, due to lack of funds, the project had only ninth-grade children.

In some schools, despite irregular attendance and the absence of conditions for attending classes, they manage to move to the next grade.

"The period of the coronavirus pandemic harmed the educational achievements of all students, especially Roma and Egyptians. For these reasons, the school was more tolerant and lenient in its demands. With the emergence of the virus and the transition to online teaching, the largest number of students of Roma nationality was very little involved in teaching activities", teaching staff from Elementary School "Milan Vuković" from Herceg Novi told CIN-CG.

As they also stated, only a small number of students from this community did not have digital equipment and were not able to make contact with teachers. "The others did not perceive it as an obligation and generally did not carry out their tasks. Their parents did not contribute to overcoming that problem. However, even in such circumstances, they note that all students successfully finished their grades."

From Elementary School "Mileva Lajović-Lalatović" in Nikšić, they pointed out to CIN-CG that the general success of these students in 2020 and later is somewhat better than in previous years. It was suggested to the teachers that "when evaluating the achievement of the planned learning outcomes, in the final evaluation, in addition to the results of the student's work related to knowledge, understanding or application of what has been learned, the student's effort, promptness to respond to assigned tasks on time, compliance with agreements and the like should be included... ".

"Students are provided with continuous individual support through the organization of supplementary and extra classes. Also, in cooperation with the NGO Mladi Romi, mentoring support in their work is provided for eighth and ninth-grade students and teacher-tutor support for sixth to seventh-grade students. Mobile phones and tablet computers were provided for students from low-income families to have better conditions for online classes, " they told CIN-CG from this school.

The non-transparency of the MEIS database harms the improvement of teaching quality

Many schools contacted by CIN-CG emphasized that they cannot directly extract data on the success rate of students from this population. They suggested that we reach the Ministry of Education (MOE), from where, as they told us, it is possible to obtain this data through their MEIS database.

However, the Ministry did not submit figures showing the percentage of students' success in the last year. Instead, they forwarded those that show how many of them enrolled and completed primary and secondary school from 2016 to 2021.

According to these data, in the school year before the coronavirus, 2018/2019, 1,798 Roma and Egyptian students enrolled in elementary schools in Montenegro, and 89 percent of them - 1,605 - graduated. The following year, in 2019/2020, that percentage increased to 97 percent. In the 2020/2021 school year, 88 percent finished the classes. For the last year, in which, according to our research, the passing rate dropped drastically, the MOE does not yet have data.

The statistics for high schools during the same period differ slightly, so 77 percent of them finished their classes in 2016/2017, and the following year 89 percent, while in the previous school year, the percentage dropped again to 72 percent.

"What exactly is the purpose of the MEIS database if it is non-transparent? I also tried to get some information by using it, but even after several requests, I didn't succeed," Biljana Maslovarić, director of the Pedagogical Center of Montenegro, told CIN-CG.

During her many years of practice, she often worked with Roma children and created alternative learning methods.

"Roma and Egyptian children can achieve great results. However, it is questionable how and to what extent the resources of the competent Ministry are managed. For example, the MEIS database should, among other things, provide guidelines in how the quality of teaching can be improved, not only for Roma but for all children," Maslovarić said.

The Ministry of CIN-CG did not answer whether and how the MEIS information system is used to assess the impact of the pandemic on the educational system in Montenegro and what consequences it had on students.

"To get a full insight into the effects of the covid-19 crisis on education, it would be necessary to conduct a more extensive, in-depth research and to focus on several key fields to have more detailed findings on the profound consequences of the changed way of working in the education system during the pandemic," the dean Novović says. "A comprehensive analysis would refer to all levels in the vertical structure of the educational system, to all educational fields, areas, subjects, academic achievements, as well as to the socio-emotional skills and communication competencies of students from the Roma and Egyptian population," she points out.

"The effects of the pandemic on education is difficult, almost impossible to determine because, in addition to the pandemic, which certainly played an important role in many educational outcomes, there was also a significant number of other causes," Dijana Vučković, a member of the National Council for Education and a professor at the University, told CIN-CG.

According to her, the impression of a large number of professionals in education is that the pandemic has temporarily prevented the planned educational achievements that would probably have been achieved under the conditions of the classroom, regular, and complete teaching.

As she stated, the Bureau for Educational Services, the Center for Vocational Education and Training, and the Examination Center, competent institutions for the implementation of research, analyzed the pandemic's impact on the education system in Montenegro. Those results are not yet available to the public.

Vučković notes that there is also a part of knowledge, skills, and competencies that distance learning has developed in particular. "Without digital competencies, organizing the work wouldn't be possible. I believe that the students, as well as their teachers, improved those skills very significantly."

The Ministry of Education registered 500 students outside the system

Maybe some skills were developed during distance learning, but there were a lot of challenges as well. Although the Ministry of Education points out that only the "Božidar Vuković Podgoričanin" school, in cooperation with the HELP organization and Telekom Crne Gore, donated 70 phones in the first year of the pandemic, the school administration was unable to make contact with 100 students from minority populations. And as many as 500 were unavailable, including other secondary and elementary schools in Montenegro.

Phones and other aids for online teaching were also donated to many different schools where Roma and Egyptian children study. "These actions significantly reduced the number of children outside the system. Among other things, we also awarded scholarships for Roma and Egyptian high school students in the amount of 60 euros per month," the Ministry points out.

As they point out, teachers and mentors were also beneficial in the first wave of the pandemic. In primary schools, 36 were engaged, and 43 were in secondary schools.

Only 54 percent of households have access to the Internet, while only 15 percent have access to a computer

"With only 54.2% of households having Internet access and only 15% of them having a computer at home, online education is not available to many Roma and Egyptian children, which further increases the risk of their exclusion from the education system and the community." the Report on the Rapid Social Impact Assessment of the COVID-19 outbreak in Montenegro states.

The Roma Education Fund opened as part of the Open Society Foundation, expects the high dropout rate of 68 percent among these children to increase due to the conditions preventing them from participating in distance learning. "The most common obstacle faced by Roma children with no access to electricity or the Internet cannot connect to remote education programs. They often don't have computers, televisions, printers, and other things necessary for learning online", as stated in the Open Society Foundation "Roma in the COVID-19 Crisis" from 2020.

Research by the NGO Phiren Amenca showed that, out of a sample of 360 parents with school-age children, only 13 percent responded that they had technical equipment and an Internet connection for participating in distance learning (phone, laptop, computer). The remaining 87 percent surveyed had neither the Internet nor specialized equipment, while some did not have enough devices for all the children in the family.

"That is why it can be concluded that many children from the Roma community could not adequately participate in distance learning. Roma settlements are without the necessary infrastructure as a prerequisite for the implementation of distance learning", Elvis Beriša, executive director of the NGO, says for CIN-CG.

Apart from technical prerequisites for successful distance learning, according to Berisha, there were other challenges - such as the lack of support in learning from parents, which is provided to RE children even in ordinary circumstances. "Parents are largely illiterate and without the necessary knowledge to help their children learn. The restricted movement also made it impossible for the mediators to do their work, regularly communicate with the families, and provide them with the necessary study materials. All of the above harmed the quality of education of Roma children and threatened the already low level of knowledge those children have after leaving the school", Beriša concludes.

Out of 122 ninth-grade students, no A students

Research by the NGO Mladi Romi for the 2019/2020 school year showed that there is not a single excellent student in a sample of 122 ninth-grade students in Montenegro. Only one is very good, 33 good, while 88 are sufficient. "The overall average for these students is sufficient (2.23), which is particularly problematic for continuing education. Without mentoring support and the scholarship provided by the Ministry of Justice, the number of students in high school would decrease significantly," Samir Jaha, NGO Mladi Romi director, said. 

In the last school year, there were 115 active high school students, only one of whom attended high school, while the rest were in vocational schools. According to this NGO, there were no new Roma university students last year. In some cities, there are not even high school students, such as Berane, where no member of the Roma population has enrolled in high school for five years.

According to Jaha, the main obstacles for children and young people from vulnerable groups in terms of availability, regular attendance, learning, and progress in education are the long distance to schools and the absence of organized transport, extreme poverty, prejudices, insufficient knowledge of the official language, inadequate family support, severe illiteracy in the case of mothers who spend most of their time with their children, the inefficiency of dropout prevention teams, the absence of a tutoring program, lack of adequate technical equipment, undeveloped work habits...

"We assess the quality of children's knowledge as not good enough for elementary school, especially in the "Božidar Vuković Podgoričanin." A special problem is children's passing from class to class, and half of the children who finish primary school do not continue due to a feeling of inferiority. In secondary education too, we noticed students are moving to the next grades for the sake of following the procedures, especially in smaller communities."

Insufficient support across the region

A regional analysis of the impact of covid-19 on Roma in the Western Balkans, within the project "Roma Integration" of the Council for Regional Cooperation, showed that three out of four Roma children did not receive help during online classes - neither from teachers nor from classmates. "The school dropout rate increased by 11 percent at the regional level, mostly due to the difficult financial situation of families, as every other Roma reported a reduced income," this analysis states.

About 59 percent of respondents, according to the same study, said that the pandemic had influenced their school results. 

"Despite the response of the WB countries to the crisis in education during the covid-19 virus pandemic, learning loss will be unavoidable and considerable, with a larger share of students falling back into functional illiteracy and potentially dropping out school. According to estimates, the percentage of students with below-average achievement in the domain of reading literacy will increase from the current 53 to 61 percent," it is stated in the World Bank's (WB) 2020 report "Economic and Social Impact of the Covid-19 on Education".

The permanent impact of closing schools during the pandemic worsened the already significant educational differences between children from this and the general population due to unequal access to resources and support, warns the UNICEF report "Educational Pathways in Roma Settlements" from January 2022.

The global crisis in education is more severe than thought

According to research conducted by UNESCO, UNICEF, and the World Bank, the global crisis in education is more severe than previously thought. ''In low- and middle-income countries, the number of children who cannot read and understand a simple text by age ten will rise from around 50 percent before the pandemic to around 70 percent," states the report "The State of the Global Education Crisis: A Path to Recovery." published in 2021.

Research shows that in rural Pakistan, results for primary students in grades 1-5 declined in math and reading. In South Africa, for example, second graders experienced losses of 70 percent in reading and math. Primary school children in Ethiopia learned only 40 percent in math, and the learning gap between urban and rural students increased.

In Brazil, students learned only 28 percent, and the dropout risk increased more than threefold. In India, the number of third-graders in public schools able to perform simple subtraction has fallen from 24 percent in 2018 to only 16 percent in 2020.

The learning decline is significant even in high-income countries, which quickly took measures to mitigate the pandemic's consequences. For example, data from an 8-week school shutdown in the Netherlands showed a learning loss equivalent to 20 percent. In Switzerland, primary school students learned more than twice as fast when attending school in person compared to remote learning during school closures.

More than 370 million children globally missed out on school meals during school closures, losing what is, for some children, the only reliable source of food and daily nutrition. The mental health crisis among young people has reached unprecedented levels. Advances in gender equality are threatened, with school closures placing an estimated 10 million more girls at risk of early marriage in the next decade and at increased risk of dropping out of school. In the pessimistic scenario, Learning Poverty is expected to increase to as much as 70 percent in low- and middle-income countries - warns the report of UNESCO, UNICEF, and the World Bank.

First to establish the damage, then plan compensation for the learning losses

According to dean Novović, Montenegro should first establish the damage that covid-19 has caused everyone in the education system. "When it comes to children from the Roma and Egyptian population, weak points should be detected, and an action plan should be drawn up to gradually and effectively overcome the perceived problems," she explains, adding that workshops and seminars for children, parents, teachers, as well as some models of supplementary/additional teaching, accompanied by specific written instructions could be helpful. 

As noted by Vučković, the educational system would have to assess the quality and quantity of acquired knowledge, skills, and competencies from September of the next school year and, based on that, plan adequate compensation for what is determined to be missed or insufficiently adopted. She believes that teachers, with the professional support of the Bureau for Educational Services, and the Center for Vocational Education and Training, are the most competent to carry out such assessments. In essence, she says, the beginning of the next school year should be dedicated to assessing what has been learned and making up for what has not so that the consequences of something that may have been missed do permanently reflect on the learning of new material.

These assessments are crucial because many children from this community finish primary school without functional literacy, which makes it difficult for them to continue their education and keeps them in a vicious circle of poverty.

Andrea JELIĆ