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A Norwegian Perspective on educational provision for Gypsies and Travellers: A September visit to Scotland 2007

Anne Lund and Bente Moen from the Faculty of Teacher Education and Interpreting, Sor-Trondelag University College, Norway visited STEP to gain an overview of Scottish local authorities’ educational provision for Gypsy and Traveller children and young people.

During a meeting at STEP, the Norwegian teachers described their project: How to make Romani children more included in school and classes and how to make them succeed in the school system

The aims of their project closely matched the aims of the Scottish Traveller Education Programme, and the service issues involved were broadly similar to those found in Scotland.
These were:

The ethnic status of Gypsy/Travellers, Rom and Romani
The discrimination faced by these communities
Interrupted education
The significance of developing

positive relationships between Gypsies/Travellers, Rom and Romani families and the schools they attend
schools’ competency to handle cultural diversities and meeting the challenge of mobility that many families present

It was obvious that we could learn much from examining each other’s systems of educational provision for highly mobile families.

In addition, Anne and Bente visited colleagues at the City of Edinburgh Council’s Hospital & Outreach Teaching Service to hear about their services for Gypsy and Traveller children and young people, and at Glasgow City Council Interrupted Learners Service & Occupational Travellers Support to hear about their Laptops for Travellers project.

As in Scotland, the Norwegians are looking at the provision of effective learning, which blends traditional methods with ICT supported learning when travelling. We can see the potential scope for sharing of learning materials delivered through the medium of computer-based technologies.

Below is Anne and Bente’s account of their reflections on educational services for Gypsy and Traveller communities.

Status as National Minority in Norway September 2007
Criteria; Minority groups who have been citizen over time and have historical connection to the country.
Current National Minorities:

persons of Finnish stock
skogfinner ("wood Finns")
Jews
gypsies (Rom)
travellers (Romany)

Travellers in Norway
In 1999 Norway ratified the European Council’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities : "Persons who belong to ethnic, religious or language minorities have the right, together with others from their own group, to cultivate their culture, religion and language".

Travellers are victims of greatest forced assimilation effort by Norwegian authorities. Cultural termination was the expressed policy resulting in:

Prohibition against using their own language
Prohibition against singing their own songs
Prohibition against travelling
Sterilizing women
Labour camps where travellers would learn to live in the Norwegian way
Forcing children into foster homes.

Core values in Norwegian policy today:

An open and diverse society based on mutual tolerance and esteem
Equality of opportunity and participation in society
Everyone living in Norway, irrespective of background, have the same genuine possibilities and the same duty to participate in all parts of the society and to use their resources

Travellers today
Internal disagreement about minority status: Three main strategies for attitude towards background:

De-emphasize ethnicity, would rather be treated as Norwegians (the past can destroy the future, do not want to tell others they are travellers)
Tell their children they are travellers, focusing on the positive part of this history. Do not focus on ethnicity in public because of the risk of stigma
Publicly announce they are travellers, want to carry on the traditions and choose to maintain a sort of existence as travellers

Travellers relations with schools

Insufficient schooling is common among travellers
Foster care meant to ensure education; did not work out
Outsider status and stigmatization by the majority contributed to inadequate education
Traveller lifestyle difficult to combine with permanent schooling
Traveller status not always obvious in school

As far as we have seen in Norway today, there is no research on the connection between schools and the children of travellers

We have taken note of different situations in school:

Insufficient knowledge about the situation for travellers’ life, history and cultural traits
Travellers as a national minority group is unknown
Many communities still practise taking children out of school if parents ask for more than two weeks off

As a consequence, families choosing to travel do not get help from school in the period of travelling

The parents tell about an insufficient school attendance
It is difficult to help and to motivate for school work
Irrespective of travelling travellers have a relatively high rate of absence from school
Some travellers talk about feelings of exclusion
Some schools claim this is because parents are unable/unwilling to understand their children’s educational needs
Travellers perceive that the school thinks they are not interested, are lazy or have no capacity, or the school is not doing its best
Still some travellers who do not complete the compulsory school in Norway
Schools and homes often perceive situations differently and promote different values
Some teachers ask the child to deny the identity as a traveller with the intent that this will be the easiest and best for the child
Both parents and schools give the impression that problems often start in lower secondary school

"Romanis – from childhood to adulthood"
On this background Taternes landsforening (TL) (The National Association of Travellers) initiated a school improvement project together with Dronning Mauds Minne Høgskolen (Queen Maud's College of Early Childhood Education) and Høgskolen i Sør-Trøndelag, avdeling for lærer – og tolkeutdanning (Sør-Trøndelag University College, Faculty of Teacher Education and Deaf Studies)

The Romanis – from childhood to adulthood project has government financial support from 3 ministries:

Ministry of Labour and Social Inclusion
Ministry of Children and Equality
Ministry of Education and Research

Main aims

To contribute to a better situation for Romani children in nursery school and in school
To spread information about Romani culture, tradition and history in schools
To implement ICT-based learning between Romani children and teachers (to keep up contact between children and teachers when the Romani family is travelling – distance learning)
To make headmasters, teachers and teacher students aware of national minorities' rights

What has been accomplished?
We have built a national network of 5 primary - and secondary schools in Norway.
10 teachers take part in the network.
We have shared responsibilities:
TL is responsible for providing information to Romani families and to motivate new families to take part in the project
HiST ALT is responsible

to infor teachers and schools
to motivate schools for participation
to teach participations the use of ICT-based dialogue program

DMMH has the responsibility to carry out the cultural project in the school network

Strategies for improvement
The situation is: Romani families want to travel when spring comes!
This is a right they have according to their culture. This fact influences Romani children's schooling. We want to:
Implement net-based learning together so children and teachers can be in contact while families are travelling
A dialogue forum is set up for communication and teaching through internet
Communication in dialogue forum facilitates contact between:

Teacher / child
Romani child / children in the class
Teacher / other teachers in the project
All the Romani children in the project

Project aims

Make schools more competent to handle cultural diversity
Make schools more competent to meet the challenge that the Romani families represent
Improve learning for Romani children in the travelling periods
Give the children higher digital competence
Strengthen the principle of adapted teaching
Improve the relationship between schools and Romani families

Further work in the project:
Our main question is: How to make Romani children more included in school and classes and how to make them succeed in the school system?
We want to:

Evaluate the results of the project together with the teachers.
To spread information and knowledge to schools about national minorities and their rights

Further aims

Implement permanent pedagogical systems for Romani children in school during travelling periods
Spread the experiences from the project to other schools in Norway
Pursue the project and together with the teachers make improvements in the process

Anne Bonnevie Lund
Bente Bolme Moen September 2007