“The context is like it surrounds us. The University is not accessible for people from the neighborhoods, the context does not make it easy for us, from the neighborhood itself, the family, the situation, there are messages that tell us ‘that is not for you, you can’t get there’…” This is the testimony of the coordinator of an educational support program interviewed by the authors of the study on gypsy students at the University of Alicante.
The report, which was presented on Thursday at the UA along with a similar one carried out at the University of Valencia, offers a current overview and some proposals for improvement to be taken into account in the immediate future.
At first, the difference in the access mode is striking. If in the total of UA students 76.8% have entered through the PAU, among the gypsies this was only the case in 53.6%, while 28.6% used the entrance test for those over 25 years (compared to 1.1% overall) and 14.3% accessed after completing some training cycle (8% overall). And the difference is made by women.
Because the incorporation of students of the Gypsy ethnic group to the university, still a very minority (only 2% of them access the University, according to data from the Gypsy Secretariat Foundation), is also later, but not so much for the boys. In fact, they join through the PAU in the same proportion as the entire student body (75%), but only a third of them enter after passing the previously called ‘selectivity’ (37.5%); 43.8% access through the test for those over 25 years of age and a significant 6.2% are over 40.
More than half of the Roma students are made up of women (57%), their average age is 33 years and theirs is also over 30. The authors of the study appreciate a relationship between the environment of origin and the fact that they are inclined to pursue studies related to “the social”, so that while nine students study Social Work, four are inclined towards Teaching and three towards Law,
Of a total of 28 students, 86% of them receive scholarships, only three study without them. And their family circumstances differ clearly from the generality of students: 54.5% of women have children and 72.7% are forced to make their studies compatible with work. As for men, 60% work in addition to studying and 20% have children.
Admitting that responding at an early age to the traditional roles in their culture – in the case of men, providing financially for the family and taking care of it in the case of women – interferes with the interest in continuing studying, UA professor Clarisa Ramos, who moderated the event, criticized the label of “absenteeist” with which gypsy students are often labeled at school. In her opinion, it is the “shameful child poverty” existing in the neighborhoods where many of them live that is behind the abandonment: “if there is no equity there is no inclusion,” she stated; “We don’t all start from the same place.”
The authors of the report support this thesis. They cited as an example the testimony of a participant in the study who said “I don’t know any Roma family that tells you: ‘I don’t want my child to study. I don’t want my child to have a future’. I don’t know them, seriously. No. “It’s that they don’t want to, it’s that they have limitations, they worry more about other things, in their daily lives. Then that becomes secondary. But not because it is not important, but because there are other priority things.”
The study, carried out by professors Alicia Ferrández, Inma Hurtado, from the University of Alicante, and MarÃa José SanchÃs, from Miguel Hernández de Elx, has selected a series of improvement proposals provided by the participants in the surveys and interviews carried out. Among them, one of the most demanded was precisely the need to find flexible formulas that allow one to reconcile work and family life with studies.
Professors Elena Mut and Yaiza Pérez, from the University of Valencia, also participated in the event, endorsing the data and conclusions presented by their colleagues. Their study identifies as specific problems of the Roma community, when considering pursuing university studies, the economic barriers, the difficulty of access and making compatible family support and studies, the lack of references of their ethnic group, the reproduction of discriminatory stereotypes. and a self-imposed pressure, given the need for success that justifies a still minority election.
These obstacles, they point out, derive from factors such as a precarious family socioeconomic situation, in which daily subsistence focuses a good part of the energies; the neighborhood that is inhabited, where the housing conditions and the environment often do not favor study habits, and an educational system that is poorly prepared for minors with difficulties, which segregates them not only by educational level, but also by ethnic origin.
This leads to early school leaving, caused by the need to take on work activities. This abandonment is often permanent, but in other cases, once a certain economic and personal stability has been achieved, a return to studies occurs.
The authors consider the information and support work of the Roma associations to be essential, given the great lack of knowledge of the existing credit system, the formation of degrees, the scholarship system and administrative procedures; a lack of knowledge that, together with economic difficulties, causes the perception of the University as a possible destination to become distant.
