– Well, the school wasn’t like this. It was different. The room was different. It’s better fitted, it’s bigger, too. I’d rather go there, said Laura, an eighth-grader.
She lives in a neat environment, her clothes are clean and their home is shining. She’s dancing gracefully, she’s smart, kind and polite. She has one fault: she was born in the wrong place. We met on the last day of the mock exams when she set foot for the first time in the main building of her school. Since she had attended the same educational institution but went to its much more modest building located the shantytown.
It’s been four years ever since, but I still couldn’t forget the girl’s gaze as she turned inward feeling the injustice she suffered and helpless sadness stamped on her face.
There is still segregated education in Laura’s city school in Szeklerland, in the “posh Udvarhely” up to this day as in so many educational institutions around Transylvania and Romania although the law prohibits the educational segregation of children on any grounds if they are separated against their will.
But I wanted to tell you a much merrier story, namely that you should picture that there is a place where the Lauras can get a chance and everybody can profit from it. This place is in the heart of Szeklerland, at the foot of the mountains, the land of the logging workers as it used to be called, and this world famous village is called Zetelaka. Of course not everything is perfect here either, but in Zetelaka necessity and life made people adopt some clever decisions that could be interesting worldwide as well.
It wasn’t easy to put this story together since the seven-headed dragon wandered off, the princess got vexed, the haggis ran away and the Gypsy women milked the moon, so lend me your ears!
The seven-headed segregation
Once upon a time there was a monster called segregation. It turned up everywhere where the Roma lived, and in vain did they fight it with weapons, fire and the law, it still constantly reared up its head. It took pleasure mostly in conquering the towns: Csíkszereda / Miercurea Ciuc, the proud county seat of Hargita County, the posh Udvarhely/Odorheiu Secuiesc and the less posh but aspiring Gyergyószentmiklós / Gheorgheni.
Although these towns had everything they needed and then some more in vain as all princes made efforts to stay on their good side, a village succeeded in defeating the beast. This is what the story is about.
Lots and lots of Roma live in Zetelaka. Or not really. Or well, I don’t know. I can explain it: most of them used to live in a place called Gátmege or Gátmegett or even Gátmögött (pronounced as such for the sake of the locals of Keresztúr and Szeged) that was separated from the rest of the village by the legendary Nagy-Küküllő river. Well yes, except that these Roma would travel abroad so often that they got ashamed to be called Gypsies and started to identify as Hungarian and live like the non-Romani.
They went to great lengths and thought that those who identify as Hungarian and not Roma or Gypsies would get more gold from the treasuries of the Szülőföldön magyarul (Hungarian in the Homeland) programme. But it wasn’t true, king Viktor’s only condition being that the children attended Hungarian-medium classes. But just in case, in the place in question most said nevertheless that they weren’t Roma.
And this is how it amazingly occurred
that in the 2021 census only 4 people declared that they were Roma, but when asked at school about their children’s ethnicity, 26 Roma children were enrolled. According to the researchers however at least 400-500 Roma lived in the village counting 4000 inhabitants.
Although they identified as Hungarian and proudly wore the Szekler folk costume once they could afford it, everyone in the village still knew they were Roma. And if no one asked, they would also refer to themselves as Gypsies or Roma. They even called each other Gypsies.
They lived in three separate areas, and they didn’t really socialise. Most of them lived in the Gátmegett colony. The others lived on what used to be called Cigány Street, now known as Szent Imre Street. This part of the village – made up of small huts and improvised shacks – lies in the upper part of Zetelaka, a bit off the main road to the right, near the edge of the village. They were tent-dwellers, though not the wealthy kind who build grand palaces in Etéd / Atid, along the Nyárád river’s (Niraj) valley or on the banks of the Aranyos (Arieș).
Although in most parts of Transylvania the tent-dwellers and the Gábor Roma are considered to be at the top of the Romani social hierarchy, in Zetelaka and in the Csík/Ciuc region they represent a less wealthy group. Still, they preserve their traditions, including the wearing of the traditional skirts and the hats. The people from Gátmegett refer to them as “Gypsies” and because they are poorer and belong to a different social stratum, they don’t really want to socialise with them.
In the place called Hegyben only a few families lived and they were said to be “troublesome.” That is, they had some ugly affairs in the past, but lately they’ve been trying to run their businesses under lawful circumstances. I don’t really know for sure because I don’t know them personally—this is just what I’ve heard.
And now I’ll tell you what you can expect from this fairy tale in which the beat of segregation was defeated:
- Once, there were three primary schools in Zetelaka: the Alszeg, the Belső Street and the Tófalva schools. Teaching was discontinued at the Alszeg school because there were too few children. Most Roma children attended the Belső Street school since it was closer to them, both for kindergarten and later for primary school. However, at a certain point they came to make up about half of the students and when their numbers grew, they did not behave properly. As a result, Hungarian parents began taking their children either to the town or to the other school.
- The segregation sought to separate Roma children from Hungarian children, but the school leadership did not allow it. Five years ago, schooling was reorganized into districts: two school zones were created within the village and the village was divided in such a way that the area called Gátmegett was split right down the middle. One half of the Roma children were assigned to the Belső Street school and the other half to the Tófalva school.
- The Roma parents were not always happy about this because the Tófalva school is a bit farther away and the children had already grown used to the Belső Street building during their kindergarten years.
- The teachers at the Tófalva school were not very happy about it, as they hadn’t taught that many Roma children before.
- The teachers at the Belső Street school could breathe out a bit but not literally, as the children don’t stink. This is exactly what I want to dwell on.
- After the ascension to the EU many Roma found work abroad, they earn decently, build houses, buy cars do absolutely everything in their power to live like Hungarians. But they don’t really succeed in it, but they strive and this is what segregation cannot stand.
- I’ve left it for last, but there is another factor in the story that’s just as important, one more thing that segregation hates. And this is none other than the after-school program run by Caritas.
- Segregation is fuelled by people not getting along with each other, by their failure to understand where the other person comes from or what kind of life they’ve had before. And it constantly strives to make one group of people very smart, very clean and very rich, while the other group is poor, uneducated, and dirty.
- This is why Caritas has programs that bring people together—elderly people with the young, pregnant mothers with new mothers—so they can get to know, understand and maybe even come to like one another. For Caritas’ programs to function, money is needed, and this is usually paid by Hungarians or foreigners. That’s why they tend to grumble a bit, but after all, it’s not only about how much money we have; it’s also about whether we get along with each other and whether we live our everyday lives in a good spirit.
The characters:
Mayor Attila Nagy, headmistress Enikő Abrán, Elemér Sebestyén, deputy headmaster of the P. Boros Fortunát school, former headmaster and councilman, former deputy headmaster András Kacsó, Csilla Dimén English teacher, the teaching staff of the schools in Tófalva and Belső Street, the staff of the Caritas organisation of Gyulafehérvár / Alba Iulia: Norbert Tókos, István Sándor, Kinga Noémi Varga, Alexandra Benedek, the Simons, the children.
The establishment of school districts is a taboo topic in Zetelaka. As a journalist, I have never found it this difficult to report on a success story. Whoever I ask either pretends they haven’t heard about the districts or doesn’t want to talk about it, including the decision-makers. The first person who bravely explains what happened and why is the deputy headmaster, Elemér Sebestyén.
He takes over the story from here:
– When the school in Alszeg closed because of the decrease in the number of children, all the Roma wanted to enrol their children in the school on Belső Street where there were classes in which half of the pupils were of Romani origin. Hungarian parents started taking their children to the other school instead. Of course, they didn’t openly say why—there were all kinds of explanations, like a grandparent lives nearby so the child can go there at noon, or the sibling already attends that school. But when a parent who lives right across from the school on Belső Street came in and asked to transfer their child to the Tófalva school, it became obvious what the real reason was. We could see that something had to be done.
There was a time when half of the class was made up of Roma children. There was a primary school teacher who would drink, sometimes she would disappear for weeks, she had a Roma class for one year. But the ones who were the most outraged were the Roma because they were being segregated. They didn’t want to be placed in separate classes; they wanted their children to attend the school on Belső Street.
If Roma children study separately that won’t lead to anything good,
because then they don’t adapt to most of the norms, especially regarding school requirements,’ continues the deputy headmaster. The difficulties with adaptation stem from the fact that their life rhythm is different: at seventeen or eighteen, they drop out of school due to pregnancy. Even now, we have a student who announced that her belly is growing and that she won’t be coming to school anymore.
There is a program that provides a 700 RON scholarship to school-going young mothers, but most of the time, no matter how hard we try to persuade them, they are too ashamed to come back to the classroom.
We had a clever girl who was an above-average student, living off what she learned at school. She received no support at home. She failed fifth grade because her parents took her to Poland in May. She couldn’t complete her semester exams, which were required to pass and the same thing happened the following year. If her parents had only sent her to school regularly, she could have even graduated—she had that kind of ability, concludes the deputy headmaster.
Something must be done
As the school leaders, headmistress Enikő Abrán and deputy headmaster Elemér Sebestyén, explain, 2019 was the year when it became clear that something had to be done. Nearly half of the classes were Roma, which resulted in 29 students being enrolled in Class A and 13 in Class B. The law changed—previously, everyone could enrol their child wherever they wanted; now districts could be established. They initiated the process and after the approval of the school inspectorate, in 2020 it was also confirmed by a local council decision that children living above the Gáspár Bridge—which exactly divides the Roma settlement called Gátmegett—would attend the Tófalva school and those living below the bridge would go to the school on Belső Street.
This was supposedly communicated to the parents as well, but the Roma parents we asked hadn’t heard about it. At enrolment, they were only told which school and which teacher their child would be assigned to, not why. A few Roma parents were upset at first—why their child had to go to the farther school when they had already attended the Belső Street kindergarten—but eventually they came to accept it.
– Teacher Előd was deeply dedicated, now I say it was better this way. Under his guidance, every Roma child learned to read and write,’ said one mother. She has several children and had previously faced problems at school because they are Roma. One of the teachers humiliated her daughter—making her scrub the kerosene floor in her clean, new white trousers and mocking her for having been born with only one arm.
And the Romanian teacher was determined to fail her other child. Because of this, she had to go to the headmaster’s office several times. Her daughter, now in ninth grade, recounts that she also had problems, she was teased and had to stand up aggressively once or twice and since then there have been no issues with the bullies. She plans to complete all twelve grades and is studying tourism. Her mother encourages her. The mother herself only completed eight grades because she became ill and from then on ‘I would go to school one week and spend the rest herding the cattle’.
Ethnic school conflicts occur today in isolated cases,
say the teachers. There’s also the stereotype that it’s typically the Roma who cause trouble. Years ago, there was a severe case where a Roma child stabbed a Hungarian child in the leg with a knife, but after reviewing the security footage, the Hungarian mother withdrew the complaint because it turned out that her child had been bullying and teasing the Roma child for a long time.
“There are problematic children in both ethnic groups. Sometimes there are even more among the Hungarian children than the Roma, but Hungarian parents find it hard to admit it”, says Csilla Dimén, an English teacher, who currently has Roma children in every class she teaches, averaging between one and three per class.
She began to see the Roma differently when she started organizing a fundraiser for them with the Gereben Association. She sees and appreciates their effort, noting that they are very ambitious and strive to integrate into school and community life. From an academic perspective, however, many of them lag behind and for this reason, the teacher is not necessarily in favour of desegregation. In her view, they would make more progress and be more motivated if they competed with each other, rather than many of them struggling with gaps that are impossible to catch up on.
However, she considers it important that they stay in the school system as long as possible because even if they don’t fully master the curriculum, they can still learn the rules of social life. She believes it is increasingly common for Roma children to at least complete vocational school: the forestry program is advantageous in this regard because since it is a mountainous area, many forest workers are needed and students start the job with some knowledge and experience; they are not entering the forest for the first time after finishing the programme.
The school has also tested segregated education,
but the experience was – teachers recounting an incident from many years ago – that when the proportion of Roma exceeds a certain critical number, the classes start forming cliques along ethnic lines and the number of incidents increases not only among the children but sometimes even escalating to physical aggression toward the teacher.
But they cannot speak openly about it since officially there are no Roma living in the village. And as the law forbids it, there’s no segregation either and it cannot be solved on this ground. From here, it’s all uphill.
At the last census in Zetelaka only 4 people identified as Roma and according to headmistress Enikő Abrán only 26 chose the Roma ethnicity when enrolling to school. Some parents almost slapped the registrar feeling offended that they are not Gypsies. – What language do we speak? Hungarian, so we are Hungarian!
That is why they cannot apply for Roma programmes either.
The headmistress explains that she is making efforts to combat student dropout, even traveling to the neighbouring village of Máréfalva / Satu Mare to recruit students.
Up to the 8th grade, the school in Zetelaka performs rather well. Reviewing the statistical data and reports from the educational inspectorate shows that the only significant struggle is Romanian. However, after that point, the better students are drawn away by the nearby town, creating a vicious cycle: because of poor graduation exam results, even those who would otherwise be satisfied with the school’s vocational offer choose not to stay.
This could be a chance for the Roma children.
According to the data provided to us by Lóránt Izsák-Székely, the school inspector of Hargita County, a total of 3,602 Roma children are attending school this year in the county, from kindergarten to high school, two-thirds of them in rural areas. In 19 educational institutions, their proportion exceeds 60%, which is considered segregation if it does not reflect the ethnic composition of the settlement.
This includes the Somlyó and Erdőalja schools in Csíkszereda / Miercurea Ciuc, the Téglagyár Elementary School and Pitypang Kindergarten in Gyergyószentmiklós/ Gheorgheni, as well as the Ficánka – Kézenfogva Kindergarten and the Tompa László Elementary School’s Budvár campus in Székelyudvarhely / Odorheiu Secuiesc, with a total of 330 students. This represents nearly one-tenth of all Roma children.
Based on the study conducted by sociologists Andrea Sólyom and Tamás Kiss, the towns are pushing the Roma families to the villages by evictions and the high cost of living. This is why more than 2,000 Roma children attend rural institutions, where they are doubly disadvantaged. The teachers’ qualifications and the level of infrastructure are generally inversely proportional to the number of Roma children.
In rural areas, 421 Roma children study in institutions where their proportion exceeds 60%, which corresponds to 16 schools. This includes the catchment area of Székelykeresztúr / Cristuru Secuiesc and the regions of Alcsík and Kászon. Nearly half (920) of the Roma children enrolled in rural schools attend buildings where more than 30% of the students are Roma. In urban areas, this proportion is over half i.e. 659 out of 1,092 children.
The declining number of children in both Hungarian and Romanian grades forces the otherwise indifferent or even racist decision-makers and headmaster to reach out to the Roma community. And although progress is slow, there are results.
They work abroad for integration
It is a fortunate coincidence that the financial situation of Roma parents is improving exponentially thanks to work abroad. Every character, from passers-by on the street to the operators of community centres, teachers and headmasters, up to the mayor, says that the improvement in their financial situation has significantly changed the perception of the Roma.
– There’s nothing wrong with them; these are honest, hardworking people! – declares, slightly indignant at the question, an older woman who is just hanging a gate key on the street by this side of the bridge. Another lady says, “We’ve become more empathic; we tolerate each other better”.
About ten to fifteen years ago, it was still common in public discourse in Szeklerland to link the Roma to crime. Now, after talking with many Hungarian people from Zetelaka, it became apparent that they no longer associate theft with ethnicity, but rather with poverty or a difficult family background. And also, that someone doesn’t steal out of malice, but because they are forced to ‘get by’ in order to survive”.
I couldn’t find any Hungarian parent who admittedly had their children transferred to another school because of the Roma classmates. According to the teachers, the parents did not oppose the change in principle; they only complained when the ten-year-old classmate beat up the little six-year-olds on the way home.
Back in the day they kicked in the door of the town hall
In his childhood, Roma children were dirty, sat in the back row and often dropped out even in primary school. However, the situation today is completely different – I press the mayor for an answer, who doesn’t want to say anything with a negative connotation. He watches over the current, fundamentally good situation, into which a lot of work has been invested. Yet solutions are only born out of problems.
He says that when he took over the office in 2012, there were problems. It was commonplace for groups of Roma to arrive at the town hall and try to exert pressure by making a lot of noise to get their way. That was when he first faced the Roma-Hungarian problem and cultural and social differences.
He says he does not know much about the Roma, but he realises that, as mayor, it is his responsibility to change the situation in the interests of peaceful coexistence; the problems cannot be swept under the carpet. But you can’t force something on the majority that they’re not ready for. He thinks the walls need to be torn down from both sides.
That’s why the cooperate with the Caritas Alba Iulia foundation,
whose staff also acts as mediators in the life of both communities. István Sándor programme manager says that they organise many a joint programme, for instance when the Roma clean the streets of their settlements, the group of local seniors cook for them and they eat together.
The message this sends to the Roma is that the Hungarians in Zetelaka care about the Roma settlement being nice and tidy and are willing to work towards this goal. Alternatively, the Caritas staff collect and list the requests of those living in the Roma settlement and present them to the mayor’s office. This way, the problems are not fragmented, and they also help to formulate them so that the parties not only hear but also understand each other.
But what do the teachers say?
While the situation of teachers on Belső Street improved visibly, teachers at the school on Tófalva Street were shocked to find that suddenly there were many Roma children in their classes after the establishment of the districts. The 5th graders who have just graduated are now in their first year of secondary school, and according to their teacher, the five years spent with the eight Roma children, two of whom did not start school with them but were repeating the year, were challenging. One of them repeated the year again, while the others were able to move on to 5th grade.
Since Cigány Street (officially named Szent Imre Street) and Hegy (Mount) also belong to their district, since the redistricting, they have had more Roma children than those on Belső Street.
Teachers on Belső Street, on the other hand, are relieved. They say that, on the one hand, it is very good that the parents’ financial situation has improved greatly thanks to job opportunities abroad, and that there are no longer any hygiene problems.
About ten years ago, one of their colleagues contracted hepatitis because there were problems with toilet training. When the stool just rolled out, it was fine, but when the child had diarrhea, it was a disaster, they say with horror.
Since then, the world has opened up for the Roma, they have become more demanding and Roma parents now want to give their own children the same things that Hungarian children get.
Tell Teach I’m off to France!
On the other hand, the result of work abroad, especially in the case of the tent-dwellers, is that they take the children with them to Poland, France in April and often they do not come back until the end of November or early December. During this time, they don’t attend school and as a result, they cannot complete the school year, so they have to repeat the previous grade. – Last year, one of my first graders greeted me by saying that their Roma classmate had been there and bid farewell saying: “Tell the teacher I went to France. I’ll be back later,” says one of the teachers.
The other problem is the large age gap, which the law allows. Due to repeating grades, some children have up to 470 absences. It happens that a child who has barely turned six looks in awe at their ten-year-old classmate, who seems almost like an adult, with their slicked-back hair and shiny black shoes, says one of the teachers from Belső Street.
– It may be that the 10-year-old and the 6-year-old are at the same academic level, but a six-year-old still needs to be told stories, while the ten-year-old is often thinking about girls or boys. In two or three years, they’ll be marrying them. The ten-year-old already shows the six-year-old certain things in the bathroom, complains a teacher from Tófalva Street. She adds that many of their days have to start with washing hands because the children come to school dirty.
They regret segregation
Out of the five teachers at the Tófalva school, maybe one has no issues with the school districts. She has a Roma girl in her class who has fully integrated and is a good student, while the other teachers’ lives have become more difficult.
One of them trustingly asks whether any official action can be expected as a result of the article because there are many Roma children in her class and a lot of problems. This surprises me because she has received a lot of positive feedback from the Roma parents.
According to another teacher, if the Roma haven’t been able to integrate after nearly a thousand years, then perhaps it’s not worth forcing this desegregation. It would be better if they went to separate classes, like they did in the past. She feels that there are only expectations placed on them: to treat Roma children the same as Hungarian children, but the Roma parents don’t even listen to their requests. For example, it’s no problem if the child is sick, travels and misses school, but they should call the teacher. Then, they show up eventually with a note. But the note doesn’t teach them how to read or write! – she says.
The problem with segregation, as defined by the Ministry of Education’s framework regulation, is that it leads to high dropout rates, difficulties with continuing education, perpetuates social prejudices, increases social costs and reduces economic revenues. According to OECD data, individuals who grow up in poverty and are educated in segregated environments pay on average 10-30% less in taxes over the course of their lives than their peers who were educated in integrated settings, which results in a direct loss of revenue for the state.
Mária Coré, a teacher of Roma origin recounts in an Átlátszó Airday podcast that segregation is justified only if there is no other solution or temporarily if the children lagging behind attend activities that help them catch up with the others. Afterward, even in cases of long physical distance, a school bus must be provided, and the children must be educated in desegregated conditions.
The parents are more eager to participate in community activities
Teachers see many Roma children falling behind because their parents do not support them. This is mostly because they cannot help them with their studies or because they are abroad and the children are being looked after by their grandparents. A grandparent feeds them and keeps them clean, but cannot help them with their studies, and so the children fall behind. ‘It’s a shame, because they are smart and were among the first to learn to read’, says their teacher about a pair of Roma twins.
The teachers were particularly pleased that Roma parents also attended school celebrations, such as the alphabet celebration. They didn’t use to in the past. The children were left out of field trips (this still happens today, as parents are afraid to let their children go on overnight trips) and even if they did participate in celebrations, their parents were not there. They might have been there during the performance, but they did not stay for tea party.
Nowadays, they often stand aside, but they are there. The teachers are all the more delighted to have them there because they taught these parents when they were children. They attribute this to the fact that they are now better integrated into the community, they know the rules and take them for granted.
Another serious problem
-not solely a problem of the Roma – but rather more frequent in the Roma families is that the children spend too much time on their phones, they go to sleep very late, they are tired, in the morning they are already tense, some of them drink energy drinks before school.
There are still more Roma children coming from unstable family backgrounds than the average: one or both parents are abroad, chronically ill, mentally ill or living in blended families. This leaves its mark on the children’s behaviour: when their parents arrive or leave, their children are “out of their minds.”
Although there are fewer large families than before, it still happens that an eighth-grade girl and her sick father are left to care for two or three younger siblings for months while their mother earns money abroad. Or the older half-siblings are in state care until the house where they can all live together is built.
The teachers are left alone
Teachers are unable to compensate for these shortcomings and as it turns out, they have not received any organised training in teaching disadvantaged children or in Roma culture. For example, many teachers resent the fact that some parents lie.
However, what is considered a lie in our culture is considered politeness in their culture: saying what is expected of them. It may happen that at that moment he is sincerely convinced that he is telling the truth when he says that his child will be going to school the following week because in that context he is telling the truth to the person he is talking to and then in another context he goes off with his child to earn money. Because putting food on the table and the family take precedence over the previous promise and they do not even understand what the problem is with this.
There is only one primary school teacher who, as an afternoon instructor, took part in the training sessions on Roma culture that were organised during the tenure of deputy headteacher András Kacsó. In addition, Caritas organised a lecture on the topic.
We contacted the county school inspectorate and the Apáczai Csere János Teachers’ House to ask whether such training opportunities are available in Hungarian. The Apáczai institution regularly organises courses on the education of disadvantaged children and those with special educational needs. This year, a training programme specifically focusing on Roma-related issues is also planned; however, these courses require a participation fee of around 300 lei.
It also emerged that training programmes for school and health mediators are being launched, with an entry fee of approximately 2,000 lei.
The mayor is not aware of the existence of school districts,
so he cannot give an account on it, he says during our interview. Nevertheless, he has invested a lot of energy in improving the lives of the Roma community and, above all, in the Roma-Hungarian coexistence. But he does not want to take credit for the achievements.
He can help with infrastructure investments: drinking water has been introduced to the Gátmegett shantytown and now asphalt and sewage disposal are planned. Attila Nagy says that more and more people are complying with building regulations, building on legally registered land and paying taxes, even among the Roma, although there are still many tax arrears on that side. The introduction of a neighbourhood watch, the banning of street vendors and stricter enforcement of housing conditions have also promoted Roma-Hungarian coexistence: anyone who has no tax debts elsewhere and meets the housing conditions stipulated by law can move to Zetelaka.
He was the one who primarily embraced the work of Caritas; in our case the afternoon activities. This started as a grant program and when the grant expired, he asked the headmaster whether it was effective or should be discontinued.
– Oh, don’t discontinue it, as it’s too good!
– was the answer. Teachers also report that cooperation with Caritas is very good and this is mutual, with positive feedback from the civil organisation as well. They have worked together to teach children to read and write and school teachers are happy to have their help. And it would be even better if more children attended, they say.
The location, however, is far from ideal. The walls are extremely damp, the air is humid, and after ten minutes I have to step outside because I can barely breathe. They are trying to address the problem with dehumidifiers. Only later do I notice that the restroom is partitioned off inside one of the study rooms, which is also used as a storage space.
The mayor has reportedly tried several times to relocate the centre, as he, too, recognises that the conditions are unhealthy. However, the process has proven complicated in several respects, largely due to strong resistance from local residents. Finding a centrally located facility would be crucial: the building of the now-closed Alszeg school would have been suitable, as would schools located in the town centre, but those concerned did not agree.
Despite this, there is always oversubscription for the afternoon programme. The law stipulates the order of priority according to which children must be admitted, Kelemen Boróka explains, showing the relevant document. The centre employs two full-time staff members and one part-time employee. The afternoon sessions are led by Norbert Tókos; Kinga Noémi Varga works as the psychologist, and Boróka Kelemen is the social worker.
Among other things, Boróka organizes family visits and is responsible for keeping contacts. Norbi and Noémi are on site between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m., next to the main building of the P. Boros Fortunát School, in the basement of the library.
In the morning, they do paperwork and prepare for the afternoon activities and the children arrive after noon. Lunch, homework, and individual activities are on the agenda every afternoon. Except for Fridays when they have Superar choir. It is a social, musical programme that develops community, entertains, provides a sense of achievement and develops rule-abiding skills, says Norbi.
But what about the results?
Eight years have passed since 2017 and now the first class they worked with since first grade has graduated. While 29% of students achieved an average below five in 2023, 28% did so in 2024, and only 18% did so in 2025. So the smaller grades increased and the average grades achieved at the competence tests show an upward trend in some subjects. While in 2017-18 there were eight school dropouts, six of whom were Roma, in the 2023-24 school year only four dropped out, but all of them were Roma.
So the strategy works based on the reports of the stakeholders and the available figures. I won’t go into detail about how the authorities drove me to tears with their data. In short: the tables came as images, without interpretation, with abbreviations, in miniature size. In fact, the results of the national surveys of 2nd and 4th graders could be relevant, but neither the school nor the school inspectorate stores data on them. And the school inspectorate’s annual reports have different criteria every year, which makes comparison impossible. Unfortunately, the buses that were the focus in 2021 cannot be compared with the results of eighth graders in 2023.
They lived happily ever…
The situation of the Roma in Hargita County is not facilitated by the fact that the recently deceased Roma specialist school inspector, Attila Kari, has been replaced by a former mayor working part-time, Lóránd Izsák-Székely, who, however well-intentioned he may be, cannot change the world in four hours a day.
What could still be done in Zetelaka is to raise awareness and promote the values of Roma culture, so that assimilation, i.e., melting into the majority, does not occur, but rather inclusion. This would allow Roma people to embrace their identity and teachers would better understand why Roma children behave differently from their peers.
During my research, it has repeatedly came up that the school mediators have proven effective in other municipalities in combating school dropout rates. Currently, mediator training is being organised by the Roma party, according to the county Roma school inspector. The situation in Zetelaka can actually be replicated in other settlements, especially in cities, but also in villages. Where Caritas or the Maltese Association or other civil organisations have programs that also involve Roma, all that is needed is to redraw the school districts to eliminate segregation and begin the process of integration.
Az az érzésem, hogy a zetelaki mese szereplői kicsit mind félnek.
De nincs, amitől. Csehországban már több helyen is sikerrel is alkalmazták a szegregáció felszámolására ezt a módszert, adatokkal is alá lehet már alaposan támasztani az előrehaladást.
Their experience shows that three factors are necessary to successfully eliminate segregation. One is political will, another is redrawing school districts so that segregation cannot occur and the third is the community-building and bridging work of civil organisations. All of these are present in Zetelaka and all that is needed now is some fine-tuning so that they can sing along with the Superar choir: “I turn off the light in my head, / I light a candle in my heart, let it shine! / If the world is offended by me, / Then I know my path is leading me in the right direction.”
Photos edited by Helga Tóth.
In preparing this article, we collaborated with the Czech website Okraj.cz and the Italian SlowNews portal.
The article was supported by the solution-focused program of Journalismfund Europe and Transitions.
