To think amount of Roma and Traveller children withdrawn from school underage needs to be cracked down on?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

My Irish teacher friends think the UK is crazy to treat Travellers with kid-gloves as we do. They couldn't believe what Travellers are allowed to get away with in this country.

I've a lot of experience of Travellers and none of it is good. I also know ex-Travellers who have been threatened and ostracised for not toeing the line in terms of the culture.

I'd like the pp who claimed we are all missing the positive aspects of Traveller culture to tell us more. I could never discern any.

Yes, this. It's a patriarchal culture that remains determined to prevent girls and women from being educated.

Just look at Venezuela Fury who appears to have the literacy level of a junior school child. All that money and her parents couldn't be bothered to give her a half decent education. Poor girl.

It took six pages of filth before someone educated enough on the subject came along to point this out.

We have a traveller girl in my child’s class and it’s accepted that her attendance is low

A Traveller girl in my class had a whole extra teacher to herself but was still highly resistant to joining in what was going on. She was also absent for two weeks, then back for two weeks. Her parents didn't bother to apply for a secondary school place for her.

She was a sweet girl - absolutely obsessed with horses and on a personal level I got on well with her. But I also resented the resources expended on her - it was frankly like pouring scarce funds down a drain.

I'm relatively highly educated. My dad encouraged this. He still managed to exert compete control over me. If only it was that simple. Education is great in many ways, but it's not a panacea.

Expecting your daughter to have kids and be a housewife with no independence isn’t an aspiration. Restricting their education so they have no control or choice when they’re older is cruel.

My experience-and the experience of the people of Appleby is that a soft headed , misty eyed traveller-would be worth paying a shilling to see.

I read through your gobbledy gook and see that you are not able to name one way the traveller community has enriched us all.

You mention some generic things such as cleanliness-like shitting next to Yeats' grave I suppose!

The rest-Family, Children, Religion Storytelling are something not particular to travellers-although I have heard them tell some pretty tall stories-an unkind critic might say lies!

Anyway, you cannot defend them-cannot mention five specific things particular to them which are enriching so I will tant you no more. You have shown your arse.

If the whole country “integrated” into traveller culture, with low literacy and numeracy, no value placed on education, a patriarchal system that fosters very early marriage and childbearing, then how would our economy function? We would be back in the dark ages with widespread poverty, childhood mortality and servitude of women.

I am glad you think all cultures are equally valuable, but I disagree. It’s a lovely idea to avoid making value judgements, but there are times when it’s appropriate. Any society that prevents its children from learning in order to prevent them from leaving is a crab bucket.

Expecting your daughter to get a degree and have to work even while she's bringing up young kids could also be seen as cruel. But I understand that most women really do want the best for their daughters, even if we disagree on what that looks like.

I did specifically say I don't think cultures should have to be useful to "us all", and that the stuff I listed is valued across cultures, just in different ways. Travellers are genetically and culturally distinct, as has been long established by AXA research. But maybe you don't value education that much?

OK - to spell out the irony I thought you'd pick up on: travellers aren't demanding that anyone else integrate into their culture. They're just trying to exist, despite centuries of pressure to assimilate.

Oh, and I think the economy would do well from a bit more 'childbearing'. Seeing as the economy exists only as long as people exist.

I think it would be a great thing for more travellers to have better literacy and numeracy - and that's the direction things are going anyway - but disparaging them for illiteracy isn't going to help, and nor is hating their entire culture/ way of living/ all the traveller men they love.

that should say academic research, not AXA research!!

WTF?

That's not what I'm saying at all! I'm saying that some institutions are over sensitive to being branded racist by tackling the perpetrators of crime when they belong to a minority group. That's not saying that all Muslim men are paedophiles and grooming kids, or that all Sikhs go around stabbing people - neither are true! These are cases, however, where an institution's hypersensitivity to be labelled racist has impeded justice.

The same can be said of the issue with travellers (who are not brown) and education. Incidentally, it's usually the women and girls in those comminities who are horribly suppressed, deprived of an education and a means of supporting themselves financially and basically kept as house slaves by MEN.

But you carry on twisting things to suit your own agenda, though, knock yourself out🙄

Ok i am a gypsy, first point is anyone can deregister their child from school.

The main reason we dont want our children going to secondary school is because we dont want them to mix with non gypsies/ travellers & picking up their ways/habits. These "ways" include:
Drug taking
Knife crime
Sex before marriage (girls)
Trans/non binary nonsense
Pornography

We feel that school also sets them up for working a 9-5 for someone else, this we do not believe in. Our men are supposed to be business men & providers. The girls can have jobs but more likely as a hobby.

Our children are taught about the real world very young. For example how to earn & save money, how to cook & clean, how to drive, we do not coddle our children.

See the motorbike exemption I have no issue with as it cant hurt anyone else. Swords are a different matter

"Our children are taught about the real world very young. For example how to earn & save money, how to cook & clean, how to drive, we do not coddle our children."

Millions of parents manage this and send their kids to school. No drugs, knives, early pregnancy etc.

Venezuela had a primary education, then had a private secondary education at home with tutors, and her parents could obviously afford the best.

Thank you. Couldn't be soon enough: should help regulate this at least somewhat.

Homeschooling in Europe I've heard is often more regulated, I'm not sure why it's different here.

Exactly.

I understand a lot of travellers and Roma have been bullied awfully at school which surely affects views but they also seem to often have unrealistic views of settled society. Maybe due to not mixing much due to prejudice and/or desire to keep separate?

Yes, thus is part of the issue I have with some traveller posters on MN..I've seen several who've said stuff like, 'We don't see education is important, we have our own ways,,earning money via cash in hand, supporting each other rather than relying on pensions.' That's all very well but it fails to take into account that that kind of culture requires an adjacent settled culture in order to function

Agreed. Ignore that poster. Some of the new generation of traveller has let down their ancestors , no different to most young people today, they lack respect, tradition, the discipline of the past.
Traveller communities were a huge part of the troubles, usually feared by the British soldiers so mostly let be, they helped 1000’s of Irish people across the border and intervened many times too, they gave Catholic men work in NI when there was none.
I wouldn’t like to live beside a travelling site as there is tension in communities between families, trauma too. I’ve always lived near travelling families living in the area, most secondary schools have members of the travelling community, they’ve integrated a lot.

Some of what a pp said is at odds with my experience of working with Traveller children. I had one 13 yr old boy who was offering his teachers (including the women!) tickets for complimentary entry ("including your first drink") to his lap dancing club... He explained that the club was in his name, for tax reasons ISTR. To my mind, this doesn't really tie in with the notion of protecting children from porn.

The same family owned a slots machine arcade.

I think you're right here. There are unrealistic views about non-travellers among travellers (and unrealistic views about travellers among non travellers). Some of the reservations about state education that travellers have is mostly not based on reality.

All the same, it's ok to want to stay separate when your kid is going to be bullied horribly for their ethnicity, or just because you want other things for them than what a school has to offer.

You yourself suggested that it might be incidental that the boys who raped those poor girls were travellers. Imagine that view, held across a whole school. Imagine how a traveller boy might feel about attending that school. Imagine how it might be viewed by the non travellers if he got a non traveller girlfriend.

Do you see how these attitudes breed the very insularity that people take issue with?

Hello. Thank you for this.

re school, my issue is not deregistering per se but the fact that apparently many (most?) are not homeschooling to GCSE or A Level standard/gaining those qualifications while homeschooled.

I totally understand wanting to avoid stuff like drugs, knives, porn, trans, etc

However, conservative Jews, Sikhs, Hindus , Muslims etc and many other parents want to avoid these things. Couldn't you try sending kids to a conservative school, maybe a Catholic school for instance?

I can also understand wanting to avoid 9 to 5 setup but school gives options beyond that. What if a traveller boy or girl wanted to be a doctor/nurse/lawyer/engineer/journalist etc? How could they do that without GCSEs and A Levels?

Can I ask also: why do you think sex before marriage is OK for boys but not girls?

They will do what they will do. They are not interested in tules.