socially disadvantaged background and do not possess the social and language skills necessary to complete the first year of elementary school in a single school year. Another successful initiative of the Ministry of Education is the establishment of the profession of teacher assistant, whose number and financing continues to increase each year. For comparison, in school year 2002/2003 there were 200 teacher assistants and in school year 2007/2008 there were around 1 000 teacher assistants. At the end, I would like to inform you, that an event of historic importance for the Roma language took place in Bratislava on 29 June 2008 – the ceremonial proclamation of the standardisation of the Roma language in Slovakia. Official standardisation puts the Roma language on an equal footing with the languages of the other national minorities living in Slovakia. Thank you for your attention.