Education Statistics

The following Romanian statistics are based on a number of sources referenced in the footnotes:

• The school abandonment rate for primary school tripled from 0.6% in 2000/2001 to 1.8% in 2007/2008. During the same period, the middle school drop-out rate quadrupled from 0.6% to 2.3%.1
• Unschooled Roma children represent about 80% of the total number of unschooled children in Romania.2
• Pre-school enrolment of Roma children (aged 3-6) is one quarter of the national average (17.2% compared to 67%).3
• In rural areas, the graduation rate for grades I-IV and V-VIII is with approximately 25% lower than in urban areas. A third of rural children of appropriate school age do not go to secondary school, comparing to approximately 4% in urban areas.4
• Three quarters of Roma children attend primary and middle school; 17% attend high school and technical school and just 1% attends college.5 By comparison, the national average of graduating students is 90.3% for primary and middle school education, 52.8% for high school and technical school and 38% for university level.6





• On average, Roma spend 6.8 years in school; the national average is 11.2 years.7
• In the 2002 Census over 100,000 Roma people age 11 and above were recorded as illiterate.8
• 47.1% of Roma people are under the age of 18, compared to 24.7% of the general population.9

1 Ministry of Education, Research, and Youth. Report on the State of the National Education System 2008. (Raport asupra starii sistemului national de învatamânt 2008.) (2008)
2 Ministry of Education and Research, Institute for Educational Sciences, Institute for Research on the Quality of Life, Roma Children School Preparation. Problem, Solutions, Actors. Bucharest, p. 47. (2002)
3 Advancing Education of Roma in Romania, Roma Education Fund (REF), p. 38. (2007)
4 Idem 1, quoted by www.tribunainvatamantului.ro/d_art.php?id=841&cat=94
5 Equal Access to Quality Education for Roma, Volume 1, 2007, EU Monitoring and Advocacy Program (EUMAP), OSI, p. 349. (2007)
6 Ministry of Education, Research, and Youth. Raport privind „Starea învatamântului din România.” P. 67, 87, 102. (2007)
7 EUMAP, p. 349. (2007)
8 INS— Recensamântul Populatiei si Locuintelor, table 14. (2002)
9 EUMAP, p. 345. (2007)

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