In search of equality

Ever since the 1999 OFSTED report that described Gypsy Roma and Traveller children as "the group most at risk in the education system", there have been official expressions of concern, some genuine efforts to find out what works and a depressing lack of progress.

Common-sense ideas have included the suggestion that racism and bullying need to be tackled.  Brilliant ideas included providing children who travelled away from their winter-base school with a laptop and Internet access, so that they can experience ICT-enhanced learning, and stay in contact with the school via e-mail.

Sadly, schools by themselves can hardly be expected to tackle the level of racism that exists in our society towards Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people. As the CRE has noted,
    “For this group (Gypsies and Travellers), Great Britain is still like the American Deep South for black people in the 1950s. Extreme levels of 
public hostility exist in relation to Gypsies and Travellers –fuelled in part by irresponsible media reporting of the kind that would be met with outrage if it was targeted at any other ethnic group.”
In this context, bullying can be quite subtle and hard to challenge. If nobody wants to be friends with you, how do teachers tackle that?  As one 13 year-old wrote:
    "Most of my teachers won't have time for me.  They think I am just wasting their time because all the other Travellers that have been to my school have never stuck it out because it is so lonesome."

Meanwhile, the Department for Education itself has sternly discouraged any attempts towards flexi-education, writing:
     "Where parents have entered in to flexi-schooling arrangements, schools may continue to offer those arrangements. Pupils should be marked absent from school during periods when they are receiving home education."
Which, of course, shows as a drop in performance for the school, and loses them funding.  So far from being incentivised to prepare distance learning materials, teachers co-operating will be penalised. Nice one, DfE!