UNESCO: Roma with Despairing School Dropout Rates

Bulgarian Roma hold a poster during a protest in Sofia, Bulgaria 18 September 2010 . Roma activists protested in front of the French embassy in Sofia against the exoulsions of Roma from France. BGNES

About 50% of all Roma children in Europe do not make it through middle school, according to a report of UNESCO.

The report of the UN Organization for Education, Science, and Culture concludes that the Roma face the highest poverty risk.

"The lack of education makes people much poorer. This creates unacceptable inequality, and increases social tension," said the Bulgarian Director-General of UNESCO Irina Bokova with respect to the findings of the report.

The UNESCO report on the Roma will be discussed at the First World Conference on Early Childhood Care and Education in Moscow on September 27-29, 2010.

The documents cites a number of polls showing the negative attitude of many Europeans towards the Roma as an ethnic group based on centuries-old stereotypes and prejudice.

UNESCO has called for social and economic government policies directed at improving the quality of life of the Roma.

The so called Roma issue grabbed international public attention in August as a result of a campaign of France's president and government to crack down illegal Roma squatter camps around the country, which resulted in sending about 1000 Roma back to their home countries, Bulgaria and Romania.

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