#2: An Education Without Segregation: A Closer Look at "Integrated" Schools
- Team TRAM
- Jun 13, 2020
- 4 min read
Updated: Jun 15, 2020
By Ryan Chiam Yiak Jin
Segregated and Non-Segregated Schools
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the continued existence of segregated schools, most notably the “two schools under one roof” system, have become a lightning rod for criticism. With general discourse surrounding Bosnia’s education system dominated by the issue of segregated schools and need for reform, it is easy to misinterpret the education landscape in Bosnia as a rather homogenous one. As was mentioned by Majra in the previous blog post, there are integrated schools where children of all ethnicities have the same curriculum and aren’t segregated. We wanted to get the perspectives of those enrolled in them and their parents’ to find out more about their experience overall. We managed to interview Dzana, a 13-year-old enrolled in an international school in Mostar, and her parents, Mido Cisic and Keller, to find out more.
Overall, we found Dzana’s experience growing up as a student rather unique. While unrepresentative of her contemporaries we found it worth sharing as it showed us a picture of how Bosnia’s education might look like if pre-existing, systematised segregation within schools were abolished.
A School Without Ethnic Segregation
Perhaps the most obvious difference in Dzana’s school was how international it was.
Language
Due to the laws in her canton, Dzana attends two schools. She learns both Math and Science in Bosnian and in English, as well as two languages, Cyrillic and Latin. While some of her friends in mainstream “segregated” schools felt lucky because they didn’t have to study as much as her, she appreciated the opportunity to learn more and found learning other languages in particular, to be a joy. She mentioned how the additional languages learnt helped her make several international friends in the online gaming community. In response to her unique academic arrangements, her father, Mr Cisic, lamented that other kids were simply missing out. He recounted an incident where a youth was lost in the airport because he could not read a Cyrillic letter, the old language of Bosnia, despite having grown up there and being Bosnian, citing this to be a large loss of heritage. This isn’t the case with Dzana.
Interaction Between Students
Besides the official subjects learnt in school, Dzana also has friends who come from diverse backgrounds and nationalities. She interacts with them on a regular basis and doesn’t really see them as very different from herself. This interaction and celebration of diversity seemed to be encouraged too, where every ethnic festival of the school’s student population was celebrated. They even celebrated Chinese New Year though there was only one Chinese student enrolled. This truly international environment and culture set by the school was encouraging to us as it gave us hope that the days of divided schools and classrooms are numbered.
What Segregation?
A Distant and Foreign Issue
Despite Dzana’s uniquely positive student experience, we observed that this also meant she never personally experienced what it was like to attend a segregated school. This lack of exposure meant finding issues of discrimination or ethnic segregation to be something somewhat distant and foreign, something we gleaned from her responses. She went on to describe how the main preoccupation she and her friends had were rather simple, like what to have for lunch or do after school, things we expect ordinary middle school youth to be talking about. Apparently, Dzana’s experience is not all that common in Bosnian schools. Muslim Bosniak Asja (aged 11) had this to say about her ethnically Croat schoolmate. “I am separated from my good friend, Amra; we can only spend time together at weekends”. The school compound even had different entrances, names and areas for each ethnicity (Delauney, 2019).
How did 2 girls of such a similar age and locale end up with such different schooling experiences?
The Role Parents Play
Perhaps one of the reasons for such a stark contrast were the active steps and measures taken by Dzana’s parents regarding her education. Having an intrinsic awareness towards the flaws of the segregated education system, intentional schooling arrangements were made for Dzana despite significantly higher school fees. The education system’s status quo was also often unapologetically criticised. This was especially the case for Mr. Cisic. Having fond memories of his formative years, he made frequent comparisons between schools today and his pre-war experiences where there was no such ethnic segregation.
The Balance Between Protection and Preparation
Preparing to Live In a Diverse, Divided Society
Interestingly, while placing Dzana in environments where ethnic differences and divisions are minimized, Mr. Cisic teaches her about the differences between ethnic groups. We observed them continually correcting Dzana whenever she made subtle mistakes talking about her friends and their identity markers. These slight details and subtle markers of the different ethnic groups seemed to be an unavoidable reality of life in Bosnia that Dzana still had to learn. Despite their best efforts at protecting her, it seemed like youths like Dzana inevitably still have to learn the realities of what it means to be seen as a Bosniak, Serb or Croat in society, for better or worse. Therein perhaps lies one of the difficulties in an ideal education like Dzana’s - How does one prepare a child to face discrimination in a divided society while trying to protect them from it? Or to put it another way, how can educators show and inspire in Bosnian youths a vision for a harmonious future while preparing them for the painful realities of the present?
A Few Closing Words
Despite these challenges, Dzana shows us how the efforts of proactive parents, like Mido and Keller, have paid off. With more parents aware of the pitfalls in Bosnia’s schooling and being more proactive in their children’s education, we can hope that in due time, students like Dzana can be more of a norm than an exception.
So far, we’ve heard from 2 students who went to an integrated school, Majra (in our previous post) and Dzana. But what about segregated schools? What is being done for them? These are some of the questions we will be exploring in our next post with Mrs Anesa from Global Analitika.
References
Delauney, G. (2019, July 03). Bosnian children fight back against segregation in schools.
Retrieved June 14, 2020, from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48760442
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