School Targets Gypsy Pupils

At his old village grade school, Laszlo Meggyes felt different because of his dark complexion. Lighter-skinned kids chased and taunted him, he says, and the teacher seemed to single him out for tough questions.

School is different now for the Gypsy teenager.

Laszlo, 15, attends a school designed to put young Gypsies on the educational fast track. By teaching them only among other Gypsies--who prefer to be called Roma--the Gandhi School says it keeps Roma youngsters from classroom prejudices that can hinder a child’s learning.

Preparing Roma for college is the immediate goal. But the Gandhi School, believed to be Europe’s only all-Roma high school, also has a larger mission.

It hopes to launch Roma youths into Hungary’s professional classes, giving them the skills to overcome centuries of persecution that began with Roma migrations in the Middle Ages and continues today.

“We were set up precisely to create a Roma elite,” says Janos Bogdan, principal of the school, which is in Pecs in southwestern Hungary.

Roma, who account for about 5% of Hungary’s 10 million people, are on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder and have less than 200 young people in the country’s colleges.

Marta Pankucsi, head of the Education Ministry’s department for minorities, says Gandhi School students will decide for themselves what to do after graduation--whether to pursue higher education or to return to their Roma roots.

She makes no secret of where her hopes lie.

“Gypsy youths need positive role models badly, and this is the most promising experiment to date,” Pankucsi says.

Named after Mohandas K. Gandhi--a nod to India, which is believed to be the ancient homeland of Roma--the school opened in 1994. It has 140 pupils, in grades 7 through 12.

Started on private donations, the school now gets government financing. Tuition is free, so Roma parents don’t have to worry about cost when choosing between Gandhi School and mixed population public schools.

Along with standard high school courses, Gandhi teaches Roma culture and language, cultural anthropology and English, French, German and Spanish.

For Laszlo, it is a long way from his old school in Babocsa, a village southeast of Pecs. “Here, everyone’s the same,” he says.

Once a migratory people, Roma have generally settled down, but many live in communities isolated from the mainstream. Many speak their own Indic languages--mainly Beas and Lovari for Hungary’s Roma--and follow their own customs, often living together in large extended families and dressing differently.

Concentrated in the lowest paying and insecure jobs, most Roma lead lives that have the air of the Third World. Some live in mud-cake houses, and homes often have no electricity or running water.

That poverty means Roma parents cannot afford the books, televisions or computers that might inform their children about the world, or even the rest of Hungarian society.