Calls for more efforts to support Roma students and pupils

Most Roma in Sweden don't finish school and truancy absenteeism rates are high. However, attitudes are now said to be changing, and more and more are recognizing the value of a good education. But now there are calls for schools to give Roma children more support.

In the past, an education had been seen by some Roma parents as a threat, and that in some way, they would lose their children. Now though, it's claimed attitudes are changing and now there's a more positive approach among the Roma community to school. But there are worries that those who do take their education seriously, aren't getting the support they need from local authorities, and the Swedish National Agency for Education is to look into the matter, and then advise schools on how they can improve things for Roma children.

Children like Roma teenager Natasja Belicka from Stockholm. She explains how her mother never finished school, but that her mum wants her to be trained and have a good future. She has a new future Natasja says.

At the Roma Culture Centre in southern Stockholm young people are taught traditional Roma dancing. The course leader says interest in the classes is growing among young Roma. And at the same time, interest appears to be growing in getting a good education.

Christina Rodell Olgac is a lecturer at Södertorn University College, south of the capital, and has studied the how the educational situation of Roma has changed since the beginning of the last century.

Claudia Kwiek is 36 and unemployed. She's one of many Roma who regret not having a better education but says told Swedish Radio that when she was young it wasn't really a priority for those in her community and that family was more important.