Visit to Elementary School ‘Mileva Lajovic Lalatovic’ in municipality of Niksic – 9th October 2020

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Friday, 09 October 2020 15:02

On 9 October 2020, representatives of NGO Young Roma held a meeting with Mrs. Vera Bozovic, principal of PI Elementary School ‘Mileva Lajovic Lalatovic’, and Nada Mitrovic, school pedagogue and coordinator of the team for prevention of early school leaving for children from Roma population.

We discussed the current situation in education and the changed schooling conditions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This school has 1150 pupils, of which 191 are pupils from Roma population. According to the representatives of the School, drop-out in this school is at a very low level and something they can be proud of. The work of mediators, i.e. associates in social inclusion, also contributes to this. Two people from Roma community are engaged in these positions, which significantly benefits both teachers and children in organizing classes and attending them.

In this School, NGO Young Roma conducts mentoring for eighth and ninth grade pupils, which began in the previous school year. Mentors provide support to all pupils in these classes, in order to successfully complete the grade and be motivated to perform school obligations in the current, changed conditions. Number of mentored pupils in this school is 33.

In addition to this, in the Municipality of Niksic, children from Roma population attend classes in several other schools: PI Elementary School ‘Milija Nikcevic’, PI Elementary school ‘Olga Golovic’, PI Elementary school ‘Braca Ribar’ and PI Elementary school ‘Radoje Cizmovic’, where classes are attended by close to 100 children.

The school pointed out that in the future it would be necessary to hire another person for the position of Associate in social inclusion in education (mediator), given that the number of children has increased and that the number of children is burdensome for two people which are engaged for this job.

At the end of the visit, we distributed packages with school supplies for students enrolled in the first grade of this elementary school.

This activity is part of the project "Improving primary education - first step towards quality secondary education", supported by the Roma Education Fund (REF).