(CZ) Cikánské děti ve výchovně vzdělávacím procesu
(EN) Gipsy Children and Adolescents in the Education Process

The gipsy population living on the territory of Czechoslovakia accounts for 0,51 percent of the total population in the Czech Socialist Republic and for 3,34 percent in the Slovak Socialist Republic. In their way of life, their way of thinking and their attitudes the gipsies still, differ considerably from the average citizen. During the last twenty years efforts have been made to get the gipsy children to attend school. These efforts have met with ever greater success, and so at present there are 18 884 gipsy pupils attending the Elementary Nine-Year Schools and Special Schools. The knowledge of gipsy problems facilitates the teachers’ work. The facts which render the teacher’s work more difficult are the following: the gipsy children’s difference in language, shortcomings in hygiene, in the standard of housing, the great size of gipsy families, illiteracy or at least lack of education of the old generation, the difference in attitudes to non-gipsy society with the resulting fixed attitudes of both adults and children, the absence of tradition in school attendance. The gipsy pupil can be made to co-operate in the initial stage of education only by means of emotional influences. Further development and full participation of gipsy pupils in the educational process are made possible primarily by such subjects as P. T., music, handicraft and manual work training, which give gipsy pupils equal opportunities for success. The main cause of the gipsy pupils’ failures is the lack of knowledge of the language in 1 which they are being taught. Special attention must therefore be paid to language instruction with the aim of improving the gipsy pupils’ ability to use the language. The participation of these pupils in the life of the class creates the pre-requisites for a permanent change in their attitudes to society as a whole, for it influences the volition area and, through the intermediary of the education of the young generation, it helps to speed up the process of integration of the gipsy population.