To think amount of Roma and Traveller children withdrawn from school underage needs to be cracked down on?

[Jane379]

Two things have made me think about this.

One was the recent thread on Venezuela Fury, Tyson's daughter. Her situation appears slightly different as apparently she did receive tuition online but it made me look into the wider situation.

I know there has been improvement, and that many Roma & travellers families don't do this. But it shouldn't be allowed in the first place. Yes, some who do may homeschool their kids properly, but how many?

There needs to be more regulation of homeschooling.

Why do Roma & traveller kids often slip through the net? Is it sometimes linked to families moving around so children move from one LA to another?

There' nothing wrong with kids preferring to pursue technical options than academic, or living the travelling lifestyle. But school would give them a chance to choose.

I don't know any travellers. How would I? They want to be separate. I only know the silly TV programmes and people ranting on my local fb.
I once worked with 2 traveler girls, they had a foot in education but only a foot.

Of course you can disapprove of cultures. It's not racist!

I disapprove of the binding of girls' feet in Imperial China, or the practice of suttee in India. How could any humane person approve of that kind of thing???

This is a massive issue where I live.

On what planet are 13/14 year old boys allowed to drive a pony cart on a busy and dangerous A road (near me?) I guess the answer is: they're not! But the Travellers here do it all the time and get away with it.

If I tried it...it would be a different story.

I think that's actually been proved - that the educational and life chances of children are hugely dependent on the level of maternal education.

In my experience with Traveller children, it's not just that they (and girls in particular) are discouraged from remaining in school to complete their education - it's the poor commitment to education when they're actually IN school.

A girl in my class had an extra teacher (not a TA - an actual teacher) assigned to support her and she made no use whatsoever of this hugely expensive resource. She was highly resistant to doing anything the rest of the class was doing. I can only put it down to an absolute lack of support from home or interest in her education.

Needless to say, there was a lot of grunting from other parents in that class whose children could have made better use of this whole extra teacher and although I had to keep my mouth shut - I felt for them.

You're making assumptions based on one posters attitudes about what should she does with her girls, assuming it must be true for an entire race of people, and then guessing what a whole race of people would 'argue' about their boys, based on it.

I don't mean this rudely, but we really, really, don't need to study totalitarian regimes. We know a lot about quite enough of them.

They are just one of the extremes of what happens within your cultures.

Many of us also know much more about how they and wars have affected and influenced our history and development, than schools do.

Did you read my whole post? The bit where I said disapproving of specific cultural practices is fine?

My post above was in response to this!!

OK - sorry for missing that.

But, quite honestly - I do find it hard to find anything to admire in Traveller culture (lots and lots of experience of it and know some ex-Travellers), so I guess that amounts to not liking the whole thing. If you can enlighten me as to some more positive aspects, I'd be interested.

But this subject interests me because it's to do with the social contract: the tacit understanding between citizens of a state and its government. As an individual, you sacrifice some freedoms in exchange for protection and care. So we have the NHS, police, fire service, people to mend the roads, laws to protect us from nasty people etc etc, but we have to abide by those laws and cannot just do what we want when we want. That's the deal.

My issue is that Travellers (I have no experience of Roma*) actively assert that they are not part of society. They expect special treatment - they flout the planning laws and many others and seem indignant that anyone should expect them to obey the law. Do they pay their taxes??? I hope so. I know they are not short of a bob or two round here!!

The ignore parking restrictions (parking all over the place blocking others in when visiting hospitals...and staff told not to challenge them) and all kinds of other rules that the rest of us have to obey. This makes me very cross.

Before anyone says 'Oh well, Travellers don't want to be part of that state'. I bet they expect health care, and nice roads to travel on, and laws to protect THEM. You cannot live in a state and claim to be outside it - it's a ridiculous (and very selective) position.

And that's where education comes in. As citizens it's part of our side of the bargain to be educated to a basic level, so that you can read and understand all kinds of things: road signs, legal information, news which affects us all, instructions etc etc. It's not a reasonable position to opt out of that - it's civic obligation. And we are living (like it or not) in 2026, not 1826. You simply cannot function in a modern society without a basic level of education and a level of participation in the state. It's selfish and obstructive, and affects others, so it's all our business.

*Roma - sorry, forgot to add in my previous post...

My only experience of Roma people was a highly positive one but from many years ago. A beautiful wooden caravan parked near our house twice a year and the men would come and ask for work on my grandparents' farm. My grandfather gave them a day or two's work, and bought some of the things they'd made. They were quiet people who caused no problems at all and when they moved off all they left was a bit of flattened grass and a fire circle. They didn't leave rubbish, steal or terrorise the neighbourhood.

I know it was a long time ago, but that was my genuine experience.

You met Old school Romani, or Romanichel. We are still quietly here.
That was the social contract you talk about.
It is against our culture to damage the land. We don't consider fire marks damaging. Fire is natural and absorbed by the land.

Pressure was put on farms to work differently and the work mainly taken over by Eastern European gang masters who run and provide the labor.
It was decided we where no longer needed so shouldn't continue our ways.
We did what we have done for centuries. We diversified.

We mainly leave vardo's (wooden wagons) in camp nowadays, and much of what we make is sold at markets, though we are beginning to sell on line too. We have pitches at markets all over Europe.

@AtchinTan

Thank you - yes, it was a different time and of course a much less consumerist age. People - all of us, not just travelling people - didn't have all the consumer goods which we have now and life was simpler.

And you're right about the changes in farming. In those days there were family farms like my grandparents' and not only the Romanichel family but also itinerant Irish labourers would come and ask for casual work - and my grandparents would offer these people somewhere to sleep.

Of course but then start a thread about planning

I admire some of it, I think how they cultivate their traditions and heritage despite immense pressure is something I respect. Everyone needs to connect to their heritage. The travellers I've met have been at church, I only see them briefly but to me they're close knit families who want the best for their kids. How all that presents is often different to what I want from my kids but it doesn't mean I'm superior. I genuinely think there's a place in our society and making life very difficult for some is not the answer. It's not bending over or exemptions but sites with facilities for example or access to education that isn't as traditionally sat in a classroom. Those are things that British people ask for too. Although the UK is largely law abiding it's not completely, plenty of people tax dodge, drive badly and break laws. I don't think all travellers do this anyway. The thing I like most about British culture is tolerance but recently our attitude to other cultures and ethnicities than white British are not something I'm proud of. I know there are plenty of issues with some travellers but I don't think anything is gained by thinking we're all so different

Haha love that as the right wing have larger influence on our society every day at the moment. I would say we need to be reading a lot about the decade before a totalitarian regime frankly because we might be frightened of what we find!

I don’t object. More school places for the children whose parents want them to learn.

They live a very cash based culture though and I do question their input to tax revenues when still using health, roads etc.

Not for my lot. We already know.
You can track history through the generations here. Every single one of us is descended from others who where the minority of wise or lucky survivors.

We know what the clouds before a storm look like. Sometimes the storm comes close but blows over, sometimes it doesn't.
Portable skills and assets and ready to get out.

Traveller culture doesn't exist to be admired, by you or anyone else. There was no thought of you when it evolved.

I see some but not much to admire about white British culture. I still respect its right to exist. Where it impacts me or my kids, or its practices infringe on my ideas of human dignity, or individuals behave in ways that may be culturally sanctioned but I find threatening or offensive, I might want to change that. I still wouldn't say the whole culture is a write off, or make sweeping generalisations about baby factories and abusers.

Travellers access health care at a far lower rate than non travellers. Their mortality rates would be an indictment of the health care system if they were accessing it at the same rate as the rest of society. More generally, your perception that they're "not short of a bob or two" isn't borne out in the data: travellers are far more likely to live in poverty. Maybe they don't pay all their taxes. They take very little from the system. And before anyone mentions policing, I think a wee bit less policing might do a world of good for travellers and their relationship with non travellers.

Tax avoidance is the biggie if we're talking about proportional contributions, but the tax travellers don't pay is pennies compared to what others avoid.

Traveller culture isn't created to be admired but I expect a few people are perplexed by it. I am very perplexed by why girls are discouraged from completing school, why fighting is desireable, why the law doesn't apply in some cases, where money comes from for lavish events, why everything must be removed from the dwelling and cleaned every day.

We non travellers have to opportunity to find out as it is a closed community.

You could say similar things about teens zooming around on electric scooters which is also illegal and doesn't seem to be stopped either. In my area, some teens also zoom around on mini motorbikes and ruin the field where children play grassroots football.

Plenty of non travellers and their teens don't think the law applies to them either.

I’ve only ever seen gypsies in Portugal near my in laws farm. They were filthy, like utterly filthy, the poor children looked like Dickensian waifs and my in laws had to have guard dogs and cameras because of the constant theft of anything they could lay their hands on. No painted caravans and buxom ladies in colourful skirts to be found 😂

Exactly, and no traveller on here has given the answers! They don’t want us to know. It’s like a closed, secret society. We have to assume, and then are accused of judging them. Does anyone believe that pooling family money , cutting down trees and tarmacking drives pays for gold plated coffins and a fleet of Rolls Royces at a Romany funeral, or a huge gypsy wedding costing many thousands?

I would like to know some things. But nobody will answer ever,I suppose this creates a vacuum and silly TV programmes mis inform.

Why don't travellers pay tax? I am taxed on my measly pension and have to declare all earnings.

I wish there was a tv documentary, truthful about all the things they won’t answer! Send Louis Theroux in, perhaps! Or, a traveller could come on here and enlighten us!

Well as suspected some of the men are involved in crime.
The main traveller man in Ireland was buried in gold plated coffin wearing a 20,000 Rolex, and a huge indestructible barrier over the plot so the jewellery won’t be robbed. It was well known that he was the head of a prolific burglar gang who terrorised rural communities for years, rumoured to have moved into the drug business too.
Before the criminal asset’s bureau they could buy a house with a bag of cash.