The British Embassies in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary recently launched a regional project to encourage the inclusion of minorities in elementary schools.
The project envisages a series of workshops in each of the participating countries, to be followed by an international plenary conference.
After the successful first leg of the workshops in Brno, Czech Republic on 15 February, Esztergom Hungary hosted the second stop of the series on 1 March. The lecturer of the event, as in Brno, was Mr Arthur Ivatts, a senior consultant to the UK’s Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) and former HM Inspector for Roma and Travelers’ Education in the UK. He was also the UK Government’s representative on the Council of Europe’s Roma education working group.
The event, in which 20 head teachers participated from different parts of Hungary, was opened by representatives of Partners Hungary Foundation, the co-organiser of the workshops, and the British Embassy Budapest. It also generated significant media interest as a result of which a much larger audience became familiar with the aim of the project and the work of Mr Ivatts through the television news.