primarily relates to the constituent peoples in Bosnia and Herzegovina, hence the need to
ensure integrated education for all citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Roma
At its 128th session held on 14 July 2010, the Council of Ministers of BiH adopted the Revised
Action Plan of Bosnia and Herzegovina on the Educational Needs of Roma (hereinafter: BiH
RAP).
BiH RAP was prepared in accordance with the recommendations and proposals agreed at the 16th
meeting of the International Steering Committee of the Decade of Roma Inclusion programme.
This document sets out four goals and forty-seven measures so that this marginalised group of
children would have equal access to quality education and a possibility to acquire the necessary
knowledge for later better integration into society.
In order to monitor the BiH RAP, the Minister for Human Rights and Refugees of BiH issued the
Decision on Establishing the Expert Team for Monitoring the Application (Implementation) of
the Revised Action Plan of Bosnia and Herzegovina on the Educational Needs of Roma (Official
Gazette of BiH, No. 5/11) (hereinafter the Decision on Establishing the Expert Team) and the
Decision amending the Decision on Establishing the Expert Team for Monitoring the Application
(Implementation) of the Revised Action Plan of Bosnia and Herzegovina on the Educational
Needs of Roma (Official Gazette of BiH, No. 15/13).
The Expert Team to Monitor the Application (Implementation) of the Revised Action Plan of
Bosnia and Herzegovina on the Educational Needs of Roma (hereinafter the BiH Expert Team),
in accordance with Article 3, items a) and b) and Article 8 of the Decision on Establishing the
Expert Team has prepared a methodology for monitoring the application (implementation) of the
BiH RAP.
The methodology was made so as to ensure data collection from the education authorities, local
communities and NGOs and is in line with the contents of the BiH RAP in relation to the
objectives and measures following the principle of setting a certain number of issues for each
measure.
According to this methodology, so far four reports have been prepared and adopted by the
Council of Ministers of BiH concerning the implementation of the BiH RAP, the most recent one
for the school year 2014/2015, adopted at the 41st session of the Council of Ministers, held on 28
January 2016. In this report, with monitoring of indicators for all four goals under the BiH RAP,
statistical data are presented for the school year 2014/2015, with the conclusions on progress and
recommendations to competent authorities and local communities to improve activities on
implementation of measures to ensure that problems of Roma children relating to quality and
responsible approach to the right to education are addressed.
In the Federation of BiH, Roma are largely settled in six cantons, according to the Analysis of
Recording Needs of the Roma (2011), with 1,716 Roma in the Central Bosnia Canton, 488 in the
Herzegovina Neretva Canton, 2593 in the Sarajevo Canton, 3917 in the Tuzla Canton, 737 in the
Una-Sana Canton and 3,495 in the Zenica Doboj Canton.
In the Republika Srpska, the greatest number of Roma is in seven regions. According to the
analysis, there are 2,969 Roma recorded and 825 Roma in the BD.
Certainly, the data may not be fully accurate, but are nevertheless important to highlight with
regard to the methodology used by the Expert Team in the selection of the sample data collecting
on the implementation of the BiH RAP.
The actual number of Roma or Roma children will be known once the results of the 2013
Censuses in Bosnia and Herzegovina are published. These data on the number of Roma children
are necessary to draw conclusions on the percentage of participation of Roma children in
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