In the primary school "Gjorgi Sugarev" in Bitola, 558 Roma study, and only 55 Macedonians. In the school, a large part of the classes are purely Romani, and the other students who live in the area of this school are enrolled in other elementary schools around the city. The problem has been going on for years, and the European Court of Human Rights in December 2022 ruled against OU "Gjorgi Sugarev" and OU "Goce Delchev" from Shtip that they violated the children's right to non-discrimination in relation to their right to education, so because of this segregation awarded damages in the amount of 1,200 euros to 38 affected families, or a total of 45,600 euros for the two schools.
In August of this year, the Basic Civil Court in Skopje found with a court verdict that the Government, the Ministry of Education and Science, the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, the Ministry of Health, the State Education Inspectorate (DPI), the Municipality of Bitola and the Municipality of Shtip, committed discrimination against children – Roma in the educational process. From all the evidence submitted by the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights as the plaintiff, the Court found that in the specific case, the segregation of Roma children was done in the educational process, in the way the classes were formed in the OU "Gjorgi Sugarev" in Bitola and the OU "Goce Delchev" in Shtip, as well as inappropriate referral of Roma children to educational institutions intended for students with intellectual disabilities. The court determined that the convicted discriminated (segregated) the Roma children in the following way: the Government, the Ministry of Education, the Municipality of Bitola and the Municipality of Shtip did not undertake, that is, they failed to undertake activities to arrange the method of rezoning, in order to avoid possible segregation or separation of Roma children from peers of Macedonian and other nationalities.
