Education takes on the status of fundamental social rights and freedoms. Accordingly, everyone has the right to receive education (Karaman Kepenekçi, 2008, 48). Although every child has the right to receive education, not all children are equally entitled to this right. Some children may be vulnerable in terms of health, socio-economic status, geography or ethnicity. According to UNICEF (2018a), vulnerable groups in Turkey are defined as people with disabilities, living in a rural and poor urban neighbourhood, being in a conflict environment, speaking Turkish as not mother tongue, immigrants and Roma children. Children belonging to one or more of these vulnerable groups may experience greater difficulties in participating in education than their peers.

Roma citizens are thought to be the largest ethnic minority in Europe (Rutigliano, 2020). In EU countries there are some challenges for education of vulnerable groups like Roma children, though current education policy frameworks are visible at national, transnational, and local levels (Alexiadou, 2019). Although Roma children’s participation in education and literacy have improved over time, there is still a big gap in terms of achieving learning outcomes in compulsory education between Roma and non-Roma students (Rutigliano, 2020). Similarly, Roma citizens in Turkey are usually living under unfavourable conditions in the city. In addition, they are ostracized in the society due to lack of knowledge-skills and education, poverty and social integration (UNICEF, 2018b). The studies (Çeviker et all., 2018; Diktaş, Deniz & Balcıoğlu, 2016) have pointed out that the most important problem of individuals in the vulnerable group is adaptation and integration to the society. For instance, Roma children sometimes are not included in plays at school.

Born to be a Roma citizen can affect adversely children’s whole life including education background. Accordingly, it is possible to say that Roma children have faced various barriers to participate in education. These barriers can be listed as difficult living-conditions, poverty, child labour and lack of positive role model in the family or environment (UNICEF, 2018a). Moreover, Roma citizens do not care about their children's education. Instead of continuing education, their parents would prefer Roma boys to work and girls to marry at an early age. For these reasons, it can be said that Roma children have had lower school registration and attendance rates and higher dropout rates. Similarly, according to UNICEF (2012), Roma children have been in the status of out-of-school. In the same report, it is stated that Roma citizens in Turkey have been defined as the group who has the lowest level of education and school attendance and the lowest rate of literacy. In this respect, it is crucial for Roma children to be educated and continue their education in order to know, use and protect their fundamental rights and freedoms.

As a result, there are Roma citizens within vulnerable groups in Turkey. It is stated that Roma population is densely populated in İstanbul, İzmir, Bursa, Ankara and Edirne in particular (UNICEF, 2018a). For this reason, it is important to identify the barriers to participation of Roma children from Edirne in education and offer solutions. In addition, in UNICEF’s (2012) report, it is emphasized that there are limited qualitative studies on not starting or finishing schools, late enrolment, absenteeism, drop-out within the scope of the education of Roma children In this context this study aims to identify the barriers encountered in the participation of Roma children in education process and to offer solutions in order to overcome these barriers according to the school administrators’ and teachers’ views.

In this study, qualitative research method and phenomenology design are used. In this context, researchers are interested in how people interpret their lives, how they build their worlds, and what meaning they give to their experience. The ultimate goal is to figure out how people comprehend their lives and experiences (Merriam, 2015, 22-23). In this study, based on the experiences of school administrators and teachers, the barriers encountered in the participation of Roma children in the education process are tried to be identified and solutions are offered to overcome these barriers. The study group consists of 30 participants including 10 school administrators and 20 teachers working at primary and secondary state schools in Edirne where the rate of Roma citizens is higher. Qualitative research is conducted with a small number of participants selected purposively. In this context, the criterion sampling method will be used for this study (Patton, 2014, 230-235). The predetermined criterion for this research is that school administrators and teachers from different branches have been working at primary and secondary state schools where Roma children have been taught for a year or more. The data of this research will be collected in 2019-2020 spring term from school administrators and teachers working at state schools in Edirne with a semi-structured interview form developed by the researchers. The prepared form was submitted to seven subject experts for their opinion on its content validity. This semi-structured interview technique affords opportunity for detailing on vital points. Open-ended questions also enable researchers to take clearer responses and get a direct example from the participants’ perspectives. All participants are completely informed about the aim and interview questions, and all are voluntary. The qualitative data are analysed with thematic analysis technique. To analyse the data, Nvivo qualitative data analysis program is used. During this process, data acquired from the interviews were first transferred to the computer. In order to check the data, the transferred files were listened repeatedly. Afterwards, they were transferred to the analysis program and the views were coded. The coded views were combined under common themes. The trustworthiness of the study will be checked by using different methods such as obtaining expert opinion, peer assessment, quoting, and explaining the data collection-analysis process and participants in detail.

Roma children have experienced various barriers in order to participate in education and continue their education. Roma children have started the first cycle of compulsory education in some way, but they have difficulties in continuing and finishing the other two cycles of compulsory education or higher education. According to literature (Halilovic, 2016; Lloyd & Stead, 2001), these difficulties can be listed as difficult living-conditions, poverty, child labour and lack of positive role model in the family or environment. According to preliminary findings of this study, the fundamental underlying reason for these difficulties is that Roma parents do not care about their children's education. Instead of receiving education, their parents would prefer Roma boys to work and girls to marry at an early age. As a suggestion to remove this problem school management and teachers should make Roma parents get aware of the importance of Roma children’s education. Because education plays a key role to get better life conditions, higher socio economic status etc. Another barrier for Roma children to participate in education can be negative relations with peers at school. They are excluded or humiliated by non-Roma children at school. On the other hand, they do not have a regular family life. As a result of this, school absenteeism is a big problem for them, they mostly do not go to school regularly. Additionally, Roma children have difficulties in literacy and numeracy at basic level. They also do not have parenting support in order to achieve learning outcomes. Educational policy makers should provide extra support for vulnerable groups like Roma children. As a conclusion, it is possible to say that the findings based on school administrators’ and teachers’ views will help education stake-holders to take necessary precautions in order to remove these barriers to Roma children’s participation in education.

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