Education Support Program Introduces Web-Based Calculator for Roma Education Data

The Education Support Program has produced a web-based calculator for data on the education of Roma. The calculator makes an important contribution to ongoing efforts regarding data collection and the lack of disaggregated statistical data for Roma in the field of education.

ESP's 2006 publication Monitoring Education for Roma described the deplorable situation regarding data on education indicators for Roma. In an effort to try to fill that need, ESP began to collect data from secondary sources and to derive, via a system of calculations and procedures, an international and comparative dataset on basic education indicators for Roma. It is the first effort of its kind.

Each calculation and procedure for deriving the statistics in the dataset is carefully documented in Monitoring Education for Roma. However, with new sources and new data continually emerging, activists and researchers need to derive updated statistical information. The ESP web calculator applet includes, and performs, all calculation procedures.

The calculator is freely available at www.soros.org/initiatives/esp/resources/calculator/.