Romani Digital Knowledge Area: Innovative Romani-Hungarian digital educational-cultural competence development and producing side material package applying regional models Erasmus Project

Project Title

Romani Digital Knowledge Area: Innovative Romani-Hungarian digital educational-cultural competence development and producing side material package applying regional models

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Partnerships for Digital Education Readiness

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Romas and/or other minorities

Project Summary

The COVID-19 epidemic is causing a particularly serious impact on the education of Roma children (beyond the existing problems), resulting in significant disadvantage; this involves not only a reduction in current learning outcomes but also the risk of permanent drop-out. Key aspect is that for many of these children, participation in digital education is challenging and is often an unfeasible task; in this matter, the fact, that plays a central role is the almost complete lack of digital teaching aids and methodological solutions that are linguistically and/or socio-culturally appropriate (eg. linguistically and methodologically adequate Romani or bilingual) for them as well as the lack of necessary essential digital learning competencies. Similar difficulties arise among educators who deal with them. The majority of Roma children have been able to participate in online education only to a limited extent or not at all, and thus they are increasingly excluded from public education.

During the project, our central goal is to develop high-quality, linguistically and professionally authentic digital contents, innovative online resources and tools, and the development of the necessary methodological and digital pedagogical competencies.
One of the main outputs of the project is the creation of a Romani-Hungarian regional digital educational-cultural children’s dictionary, based on the different dialects of the Romani language, conveying them as a value, involving parents, teachers and the children themselves in the work, supporting the learning and development of both Roma and Hungarian children learning together. In addition, the dictionary is supplemented by a Romani pedagogical glossary, which contains important instructions, expressions, formulas relevant to Roma culture and child care, which supports teaching and learning, and by it’s conscious use, teachers who do not speak Romani, will also be able to establish a closer and more cooperative relationship with their Roma students.

Since in everyday life they are becoming more indispensable, moreover in terms of the participation in digital education, IT and technological knowledge are directly unavoidable, one of the essential outcomes of the project therefore, is the creation of an IT glossary, that will make the concept set of Hungarian textbooks interoperable – along with the elements used in the Hungarian education – in Romania and Slovakia, supplementing all this also with the Romani version of the most fundamental concepts.

In connection with the dictionary, e-learning material will be created, with the aim of offering accessible resources to children, students, educators and parents, where some of the content comes from practicial experts from several fields (researchers, kindergarten teachers, developmental educators) and the other part is the result of the collaboration between students, families, communities and schools. We want to create a multilingual multimodal library of tales in Romani, Hungarian and other environmental languages, also available in Romani, enabling school, home, individual and community processing the tales, as the role of tales is especially important both in the early development stage and in the in later learning / teaching, using knowledge from home as a resource, strengthening identity and attachment to culture, increasing self-esteem, and motivating children.

In order to display all these contents and results, we aim to create a digital platform, which main purpose is to save values, share locally accumulated knowledge, present and share local folklore, natural and linguistic values explored by students, teachers and parents using experiential pedagogy. In addition to education, the explored local values also serve to promote rural tourism in the community.

The project can bring both direct and indirect, longer-term results. In line with the objectives set, the three main expected impacts are:

1. Innovative digital content and tools are created which are based on students’ linguistic and cultural resources, existing knowledge and local conditions
2. actors involved in the education of Roma children and youngsters (teachers, educators, heads of institutions, parents, etc.) acquire competencies-also digital competencies- that can be used to reach our goals and be applied more widely and with great confidence
3. a long-term knowledge sharing and cooperation network is established

The planned outcomes will reduce and try to bridge the Roma students’ educational disadvantages which have occured by the COVID-19 virus. For many Roma children the project will ensure for the first time access to online education and provide them positive experiences. The innovative digital contents and equipments will become the sources of several benefits, which have been already widespread among the children from the mainstream society.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 258152 Eur

Project Coordinator

NYELVTUDOMANYI KUTATOKOZPONT & Country: HU

Project Partners

• Uniunea Cadrelor Didactice Maghiare din Romania/Romániai Magyar Pedagógusok Szövetsége
• Univerzita J. Selyeho