Turkey’s education system, despite the country’s legal commitments to provide equitable and non-discriminatory education to all, continues to marginalise many minority communities and perpetuate nationalist principles in the classroom. Discrimination based on Colour, Ethnic Origin, Language, Religion and Belief in Turkey’s Education System, a jointly published report by History Foundation (Tarih Vakfı) and Minority Rights Group International, highlights the effects of this exclusionary system on children from minority communities and their ability to secure adequate access to education.

Despite legislation passed in 2012 to support teaching of minority languages, in practice there are many obstacles due to lack of resources and limited political will. Moreover, education in their mother tongue remains out of reach for many communities. This can have lasting impacts on the learning outcomes of minority children. In addition, compulsory religious education in Sunni Islam from grade four means that some minority members, such as Alevis, are obliged to take the course. Though technically Christian and Jewish children can apply to opt out, the procedure for opting out can itself undermine their human rights. Minority communities are also frequently overlooked or misrepresented in educational materials such as textbooks and curricula, meaning that prejudices and stereotypes about their communities are being recreated among the next generation. Finally, disadvantaged communities such as Afro-Turks and Roma often struggle to secure full educational access.

This report presents an overview of the current state of Turkey’s educational system during 2014 to 2015, drawing on fieldwork by Monitoring Discrimination in Education Network, an alliance of 16 organisations working in Turkey. Besides outlining the relevant legal standards and key rights relating to education access, such as language and pluralism, it also presents a detailed overview of key areas of discrimination and ongoing inequalities faced by minority children. It ends with a series of recommendations, including legal reforms, increased resources for mother tongue learning, revised curricula and improved discrimination monitoring, to support the development of a more inclusive and socially just educational system in Turkey.

Also available in Turkish, here.

This report consists of three main chapters. The first chapter enumerates all the mechanisms contributing to the development of educational inequalities in the Czech Republic’s education system, which are summarised to provide a context for the focus of this report—the ECEC of Roma children. It highlights the lack of ECEC provision for children under the age of 3 years (in terms of insufficient professional support to young Roma children, including that provided in some circumstances by crèches), problems related to insufficient kindergarten capacity (available child places), and low participation of Roma children in ECEC programs overall. This chapter also deals with the transition from preschool settings to primary education, and the placement of Roma children into schools with reduced curricula. All this has to be understood in the context of a highly diversified education system that “sorts” children into different educational pathways early in life, starting as early as Grade 1 in primary school. Another problem discussed is the large proportion of postponed primary school enrolments. The first chapter is based on statistical data and data from the Czech Longitudinal Study of Education, which studied educational transition in compulsory education. These are complemented by available data from other available research surveys.

The second chapter analyses the level of inequalities in ECEC provision for Roma children. It is the main analytic chapter of the report and describes the participation of Roma children in kindergartens and how this impacts their successful enrolment into primary education. The analysis is based on: Czech data collected for the 2011 regional Roma survey organised by the UNDP, World Bank, and European Commission (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights and UNDP 2012); research into the educational pathways of Roma pupils (Gabal Analysis and Consulting 2010); group interviews with Roma parents (Nová škola 2011); and regional situational analyses produced by the Office of the Czech Government Demographic Information Center (2011).

In comparison with their non-Roma peers, Roma children’s enrolment in preschool education is markedly less frequent. The key causal issues identified by the analysis include economic reasons, the different parental priorities of socially excluded families in comparison with other more affluent groups in society, and direct and indirect discriminatory barriers in preschool institutions. However, as stated above, it is well known that the beneficial influence of preschool education is more significant for marginalised and materially deprived Roma children than for their non-Roma counterparts.

The third chapter draws conclusions and lists a number of key recommendations, some with addenda.

Nombre de familles de Roms migrants s’attachent a faire en sorte que leurs enfants puisse être scolarisés et maintenir ainsi un pont culturel entre leur communauté et « le reste du monde ». Pourtant, la vie itinérante, le démantèlement régulier des campements et le rejet dont sont objet les communautés sont un lourd handicap dans leur parcours d’intégration. L’école de la République permet de maintenir ou ce créer ce lien social et certaines familles l’ont bien compris.
Avec Véronique Decker directrice de l'école Marie Curie à Bobigny (93) qui est aussi membre de l'association Défense des Enfants International, nous parcourons trois camps à la rencontres des enfants Bulgares et Roumains scolarisé dans son établissement.
Denise, Stivan, Simona, Manuel, David, Samuel, Manuela, Salomon et Sofia témoignent leur joie et leur fierté d'apprendre.
Elle nous rappelle la loi et les principes fondateurs de l'école républicaines : l'école est obligatoire pour tous les enfants français et étrangers âgés de 6 à 16 ans vivant sur le territoire. Elle parle du racisme envers ce peuple et la solution européenne à trouver à cette question.

Suite à la circulaire du ministère de l’Éducation relative à la scolarisation et scolarité des enfants issus de familles itinérantes et de voyageurs. Les communes sont obligé d'inscrire les enfants de 6 à 16 ans même si les parents ne peuvent justifier d'un titre de propriété nationale du 2 octobre 2012.

Il s’agit de montrer des initiatives mises en place par des associations ou des collectivités locales et qui vont dans le sens de l’intégration et à l’encontre des idées reçues en matière d’intégration des populations Roms présentes sur le territoire français. Mettre en lumière le fait que dans leur très grande majorité les Roms migrants sont en demande d'intégration et de sédentarisation, et que des solutions existent et sont à l’œuvre partout en France.

La vidéo est disponible ici.

This guide is part of the series of Guides on the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms published by the European Court of Human Rights to inform legal practitioners about the fundamental judgments delivered by the Strasbourg Court. This particular guide analyses and sums up the case-law under Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 as at June 2015 or when subsequently updated.

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The Supreme Court of Canada upheld a decision of the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal (the ‘BC HRT’) (reversing the decisions of both the British Columbia Supreme Court and the British Columbia Court of Appeal) that the Board of Education of School District No. 44 (North Vancouver) (the ‘School District’), by closing a facility that provided intensive services and individualised assistance to students with severe learning disabilities, had denied a child with severe dyslexia access to a service customarily available to the public, being education, contrary to the British Columbia Human Rights Code (R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 210, s. 8). Although the School District was subject to severe funding constraints, it was found to have not acted with a bona fide and reasonable justification, which could have provided a defence to the Human Rights Code violation.

In these three related decisions, the Kansas Supreme Court held that legislative changes to K-12 school funding, which reduced state-aid payments augmenting funds generated through property taxation in school districts with lower property values, violated the Kansas constitution. Article 6 of the Kansas constitution has previously been interpreted by the Kansas Supreme Court to require equity and adequacy in the provision of financing for education. The Kansas Supreme Court found that the legislative changes violated the equity requirement because school districts did not have reasonably equal access to substantially equal educational opportunity through similar tax efforts.

La Charte des droits fondamentaux de l'UE rassemble en un seul document les droits fondamentaux protégés dans l'UE. Elle a été proclamée en 2000 et est entrée en vigueur par le traité de Lisbonne en 2009.
 
Sa disposition sur le droit à l'éducation (article 14) inclut le droit à l'égalité d'accès à l'éducation et à la formation professionnelle ; elle protège le droit à l'enseignement obligatoire et la liberté de créer des établissements d'enseignement. La Charte de l'UE protège également les droits des enfants ; son article 32 interdit le travail des enfants et stipule que l'âge minimum d'admission à l'emploi ne doit pas être inférieur à l'âge de fin de scolarité obligatoire. En outre, la Charte de l'Union européenne protège la liberté académique (article 13) et comprend une clause de non-discrimination complète (article 21).
 
Key resource

International human rights law requires States to provide equal access to higher education without discrimination and to ensure the progressive realization of the right to free higher education. Although France outperforms many countries at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on many metrics regarding higher education, there remains significant problems, particularly ensuring equal access for students based on their place of origin. The opportunities students have, are not equal across all regions of France. Part of this inequality can be attributed to the socio-economic status of individual students. However, regional differences operate independently, and can exacerbate socio-economic inequalities, in determining participation in higher education. 

This policy brief shows that the unequal distribution of higher education institutions across the country results in students having to move across regions to access higher education, thus incurring costs (mainly housing and transportation), which are harder to meet for those who do decide to move, due to regional differences in standards of living. Coupled with the stagnation of budget allocation to higher education and the general rise in tuition fees, these indirect costs of education constitute a significant barrier to the enjoyment of the right to free higher education on a non-discriminatory basis.

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