Children’s rights in European education. Dilemmas, challenges and implementation regarding Roma children in selected European countries - An introduction

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) recently had its 30th anniversary. Emerging from the United Nations General Assembly in 1989, it has since become the most ratified international human rights treaty ever. Most European countries ratified it and are thus obliged to ensure the implementation of children’s rights in practice. Operationalizing the UNCRC raises practical, conceptual and ethical issues. For example, questions arise concerning children and young people’s competence to make autonomous decisions in different social domains, especially in education. There are also debates about children’s involvement in dispute resolution and the extent to which rights must always be associated with redress in order to make them meaningful. Clearly, the relationship between the rights of children and young people on the one hand and those of parents and teachers on the other are particularly salient. In addition, challenges may arise in relation to children from the Roma-minority in educational institutions. Article 28 (1) of the UNCRC stresses that “States Parties recognize the right of the child to education, and with a view to achieving this right progressively and on the basis of equal opportunity”. Nonetheless, Roma students frequently experience multiple forms of discrimination in educational institutions which amplify their existing disadvantage. Across Europe, there have been different rates of progress in terms of incorporating aspects of the UNCRC into domestic law and put them into practice in schools and other education institutions, and in many cases Roma children have yet to experience the benefits of enhanced children’s rights.