Dear Mr. Chairman,
My name is Tibor Toro and I represent the Bálványos Institute, a minority organization which provides
research-based solutions to issues impacting the Hungarian community in Romania. In this intervention I
focus on minority language education.
In Romania, the Law on Education grants minorities the right to receive education in their mother tongue
at all levels of education. Hungarian students can attend Hungarian language schools, or mixed language
schools with separate Romanian and Hungarian classes.
While this seems to guarantee the educational rights of Hungarians, our research shows that Hungarians
continue to face discrimination in terms of their human rights to and in education.
Hungarian students lack equal access to higher education due to indirect discrimination in the official
examination process. Those receiving their education in Hungarian are assessed in Romanian Language
and Literature with the same tests designed for Romanian native speakers, resulting in many failing the
test, which significantly limits their access to higher education.
They also face discrimination in mixed language schools. School equipment and infrastructure are
unequally distributed; there is lack of Hungarian speaking auxiliary personnel, such as school psychologists
and medical personnel; and school inscriptions are usually written in Romanian only.
Human rights law does not require states to establish a quasi-separate institutional system of minority
education, if states decide to do so, they must ensure equal quality minority education.
Minority education is instrumental for minorities to maintain their identity, but it also needs to promote
their full and effective equality, an aspect often overlooked in Romania.
Therefore, I would like to make the following recommendation:
•
States should ensure both aims of minority education – identity reproduction and promoting
substantive equality – while the UN should strengthen both of these dimensions through its
monitoring process.