On 03 and 04 April 2013, the National Roma Centrum (NRC) and European Roma Rights Center (ERRC) held the training “STOP for the enrolment of Roma children in special schools”. The training was attended by 35 people from 12 Macedonian cities (Kumanovo, Skopje, Ohrid, Veles, Gostivar, Tetovo, Stip, Kocani, Pehcevo, Prilep, Bitola and Delcevo).

The statistics of ERRC clearly show that there is a big presence of Roma children in the schools in Macedonia which are for children with special needs. In the regular schools which only have two classes for children with special needs, the statistics show that around 50% of the children in those classes are Roma. Djordje Jovanovic presented the video “No to Special Education for Roma”. The aim is to reduce the number of Roma children which are in the classes for special needs and don’t belong there. Those children are marked for the rest of their lives; they won’t be able to go to the desired high school or university.

Ljupco Spasovski, the previous manager of the Sector for primary and high education, pointed out that the children are categorized by the Ministry of health, and the Ministry of education enrolls them in the adequate school. There are no measures to return the children and to provide them with help so that they would continue their education in regular school. He said that we should talk about children with SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS, which differs from CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS.

The presentation was interactive, with many questions from the attendees to the presenters.

Through the presentation of Elena Gotovska from BASME, they discussed about the right ways to communicate, communication barriers, conflicts and dealing with them, perception, stereotypes, techniques for representing and lobbying.

The suggestions that emerged from this discussion were that the activists should go on the field and explain to the parents about the information that they provide with the brochure and that they shouldn’t look for a benefit if their children go to classes for children with special needs, and they should convince the parents not to send their children there.

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