Inadequate preschool education

Coming from a different environment than the majority of their schoolmates, Gypsy children form a separate group in the collective of the other pupils. They sense they lost the freedom they had in the Gypsy settlement and that they are manipulated by people who are considered as untrustworthy by their parents. They also are regarded differently by the other pupils, who moreover often have prejudices about Gypsies they learned from their gadjo parents. Gypsy children, not having attended the kindergarten, can speak only the language they picked up in their settlements – Gypsy mixed with the language of the majority. Many Gypsy children are leaving for the school often without breakfast, because their mothers still sleep or do not care; they are hungry, tired, offended, with problems, they have no interest to participate in the education process. There is no regularity in the backward Gypsy families. Children often witness arguments and fights of the adults, and often also some their sexual activities. Gypsy parents do not read stories to their children since they are often illiterate and books are considered to be gadjo objects. The children do not know what it is to draw and colour pictures in children books.