The Role of Roma and Egyptian Parents in Their Children’s Education in Tirana

Children drop away between one stage of school and the next

Since 2014 Roma Versitas Albania has worked mostly with secondary and university students. Across its education and employment projects it kept seeing the same pattern: numbers shrink from one cycle of education to the next, and the move from compulsory basic school into general or vocational secondary school is where many children are lost.

That led RVA to look earlier, at primary and basic school, and at the people who shape a child’s path most: their parents. Over the past five years Albania has adopted a national action plan, signed the Poznań Declaration and held EU–Albania Roma seminars. Yet in practice, implementation has been fragmented and rarely followed up.

From the foreword by Emiliano Aliu, Executive Director, Roma Versitas Albania.

Who we spoke to

RVA held semi-structured interviews with 50 parents and legal guardians of children taking part in its Inclusive EduJobs project in Tirana. At a mentor’s request, 15 of them took part in a focus group instead, an open conversation for parents who were not comfortable being put through a questionnaire. Some children also joined, and were asked about their role models without their parents present. The paper also draws on RVA’s ten years of work with Roma and Egyptian pupils, students and families across Albania.

• Mothers 53% (19)
• Fathers 31% (11)
• Grandmothers 11% (4)
• Legal guardians 5% (2)

Mothers carry most of the work around school, but almost a third of interviewees were fathers, which suggests gender roles in these families are less fixed than often assumed. Formal education among the parents is very low: only 3 of the 35 who answered had finished secondary school, two men and one woman. That limits how far parents can follow and take part in their children’s learning.

Exclusion runs through every part of life

The European Commission’s 2024 report finds that segregation in schools remains a problem, enrolment in pre-university education is still low, and drop-out is high, especially in rural areas and poor urban neighbourhoods. School does not sit apart from the rest of family life:

• 62%unemployment among Roma women, against 51% among Roma men. For Egyptian women it is around 73%.
• 2.7%of Roma and Egyptians found work through the public employment offices.
• 46%of Roma report discrimination when looking for work; 43% when receiving health care.
• 17homes were renovated for these communities in 2023, against far greater need.

Many families live in informal settlements without property titles, in unfinished buildings or barracks, without clean water, sewerage or heating. In schools, research has documented segregation, offensive language and lower marks from teachers, and bullying from classmates over clothes or missing school materials.

The commitments on paper

National Action Plan for Equality, Inclusion and Participation 2021–2025

Aligned with the EU Roma framework 2020–2030. Targets 90% of Roma children in basic education and 50% in secondary, and Roma history and culture in the curriculum.

Poznań Declaration, 2019

Western Balkan leaders committed, under the Berlin Process, to the same 90% and 50% targets and to effective access to mainstream schools, including pre-school.

EU–Albania Roma seminars

The 4th seminar (2018) shaped the 2021–2025 plan; the 5th (2021, Tirana) launched it and called for better coordination between institutions.

DCM 666/2019, amended by DCM 511/2022

Sets the criteria for scholarships, school meals and payments for pupils in public pre-university education.

What parents told us

School is seen as a duty more than a chance

Asked how their child feels about school, most parents answered briefly: “goes gladly”, “feels good”, “never misses a day”. Only a few mentioned a child who doesn’t want to go or can barely get up in the morning. Many parents seem to see school as a practical obligation rather than a place where their child grows.

Bullying is there, but rarely named

Most said their child had never needed to change school. Where they had, two parents named bullying, one racism and violence, and one prejudice. Several seemed to read the question as being about moving house. Most parents are satisfied with teachers’ support, but a few said their child was treated unequally because of their ethnicity. Discrimination in class is, for some children, a silent reality that parents only voice when asked directly.

Some parents named discrimination, cultural misunderstanding and segregated classes as the main barriers. Others answered simply “no barriers”. One said “at first there were language barriers, but then they learned”, a sign of difficulties being normalised rather than addressed.

Poverty is the barrier everyone names

• “It affects a lot.”
• “We barely get by.”
• “We’re in debt.”
• “School bags cost money.”
• “It’s not enough.”
• “We push through somehow.”

The start of the school year, bags, books and clothes are a heavy cost, often impossible without outside help. The word parents use most is “we try”. A few said help from the school or an association made the difference, but that help is sporadic, not systemic. Albania’s anti-discrimination law (No. 10 221/2010) lists economic and social status among the grounds of discrimination.

• Free textbooks 35
• Support teacher (likely misread: this support is meant for children with learning difficulties) 18
• After-school programmes, community centres, associations 15
• Supplementary lessons 7

Free textbooks are the one measure every parent knows: concrete, visible and easy to claim. Support teachers, after-school programmes and supplementary lessons are far less known, and depend on NGOs and individual schools rather than being available everywhere.

Policy feels distant

Asked whether any policy affects their child’s learning, most parents said no, or “I don’t know”. One answered “that they don’t discriminate against us”. Parents lack the information to see how public decisions shape their children’s schooling, and this sample, in the capital, is closer to information than families in the rest of the country.

Family is the role model

In the focus group, children said their role models were their own parents, siblings and grandparents, even without much formal education. One girl wanted to become a nurse; close relatives of hers work in medicine and engineering. What children see around them shapes what they aim for. Yet few parents could describe the day-to-day support a family or community can give, and few mentioned help from the wider community at all.

Hopes are high and specific

• “To become somebody in life.”
• “To have a future.”
• “To stand on their own feet.”
• “So they don’t end up like us.”

Parents named professions: doctor, nurse, preschool teacher, cook, manager, police officer, barber, hairdresser. One spoke of their child studying medicine in Istanbul. Here, unlike elsewhere, answers were full of feeling. Even parents who are not active in daily school life carry a strong hope for their children, and that hope is the way in.

Few ideas for what should change

Asked what would improve their child’s results, most said “no”, “I don’t know” or “nothing”. Seven parents gave concrete answers: help with hard subjects like mathematics, longer or more support lessons, an end to mockery and prejudice in class, and relief from the family’s economic pressure.

What the paper concludes

• Parents see poverty as the single biggest obstacle to their children’s education.
• Bullying, discrimination and racism are recognised, but rarely named. They may be taboo, or their long-term effects poorly understood.
• Many answers were short and general. Without enough education themselves, many parents have not been able to build a critical view of the school system, and keep their distance from it.
• A minority of parents described their needs and the challenges clearly. Where parents are closer to their child’s schooling, they can name real problems.
• Parents need to be far more involved, and schools need ways of communicating that actually reach Roma and Egyptian families.