World Bank: Few Bulgarian Roma Make It Through High School

Only about 13% of Bulgaria’s adult Roma population have graduated from high school, according to a World Bank report.

The Permanent Representative of the World Bank in Bulgaria, Florian Fichtl, presented the findings of the report during a conference dedicated to the International Roma Day, April 8.

The figure is striking compared with the fact that over 90% of the other Bulgarian citizens have high school diplomas.

Fichtl has also pointed out that the employment among Bulgarian Roma is 13%-29% lower than among the other communities in Bulgaria.

He stressed that the situation is similar all around Europe – the majority of the adult Roma do not have good education which prevents them from participating effectively in the labor market. This in turn leads to losses of hundreds of millions of euro for the respective state budget.

The World Bank has estimated the losses for the Bulgarian state budget from the low productivity and insufficient inclusion of the Roma in the labor market at EUR 526 M.

The respective figure for Romania is EUR 887 M, for Serbia – EUR 231 M, for the Czech Republic – EUR 367 M.

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