Indicator history

Italian and Hungarian minority are considered traditional (autochthonous) minorities in Slovenia and as such provided with protection of their language rights. It includes right to education in mother languages which is in the case of the Italian community realised through establishment of own schools while in the case of Hungarian minority all schools in the regions where the Hungarian minority is traditionally settled are bilingual.

In the case of Roma community there is not yet adopted curricula for Roma language, although it has been one of the goals established by the Strategy for education of Roma in Slovenia, adopted by the government in 2004. There have been efforts made in that direction through govermental support to a research group. Instead the curricula for the subject Roma culture has been developed, but it is taught in one elementary school in Slovenia only. The courses of Roma language are provided outside the school curricula by Roma associations and experts.

Minority protection for national minorities with origins in other republics of former Yugoslavia (Albanians, Bosniaks, Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins and Serbs) has not been provided through normative framework. In many aspects, including the language rights , they are still regarded as immigrant communities. In the area of protection of their languages many efforts have been  made by minority associations to organise own courses of mother languages and convince respective bodies to provide instituional educational framework for  learning of these languages.  At the moment twofold approach can be identified:  according to first, the classes of Macedonian, Croatian and Serbian languages are provided in schools as extracurriculum activities where costs of classrooms are covered by the schools (the Government of Slovenia) while the states concerned (or their embassies) cover costs of teachers and the teaching material.  As a more recent approach, curricula for several languages (Serbian, Macedonian) were adopted by the relevant education expert bodies, and the classes of these minority languages became a part of the national education system in the form of optional subjects in the last three years of the elementary schools. However in practice the classes are organised for Croatian language only (a curricula for that language has been adopted earlier), but even the number of schools providing Croatian as an optional subject is decreasing.

Sources:

"Italian community", assessment of the minority protection provided by the Office for National Minorities, http://www.uvn.gov.si/en/minorities/italian_national_community/. Date of access: 12.1.2012.

"Hungarian community", assessment of the minority protection provided by the Office for National Minorities,http://www.uvn.gov.si/en/minorities/hungarian_national_community/. Date of access: 12.1.2012.

"Roma community", assesment of the minority protection provided by the Office for National Minorities, http://www.uvn.gov.si/en/minorities/roma_community/. Date of access: 12.1.2012.

 EACEA, Integrating Immigrant Children Into Schools in Europe, 2009, http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/education/eurydice/documents/thematic_reports/101EN.pdf. Date of access: 12.1.2012.

Kržišnik-Bukić, V.  "Narodnomanjšinsko vprašanje v Sloveniji po razpadu Jugoslavije" (The Issue of National Minorities in Slovenia After the Disolution of Yugoslavia), Razprave in gradivo, No. 56-57/2008, Ljubljana: Institute for Ethnic Studies, http://www.inv.si/DocDir/Publikacije-PDF/Razprave%20in%20gradivo/RIG%2056_57/VKB%2056_57.pdf. Date of access: 11.1.2012.

Albina Necak Luk and Sonja Novak Lukanovic: "Inclusion of Roma Children into Education in Slovenia: The Language Competence and Culture Dimensions", The Open Education Journal, 4/2011, http://benthamscience.com/open/toeduj/articles/V004/SI0130TOEDUJ/164TOEDUJ.pdf. Date of access: 10.1.2012.

Strategy for education of Roma in Slovenia, Ministry of Education, 2004, http://www.mss.gov.si/si/solstvo/razvoj_solstva/projekti/enake_moznosti/#c842. Date of access: 10.1.2012.

Addition to Strategy for education of Roma in Slovenia, Ministry of Education, 2011,  http://www.mss.gov.si/fileadmin/mss.gov.si/pageuploads/podrocje/razvoj_solstva/projekti/Strategija_Romi_dopolnitev_2011.pdf. Date of access: 10.1.2012.