Box 2: The “Black Schools” of the Netherlands Parental choice regarding education in the Netherlands is sacrosanct. This derives partly from Article 23 of the Constitution, which was passed in 1917 and guaranteed equal government funding for both public and private schools, including denominational schools and institutions following specific pedagogical principles, such as Montessori schools. That system worked in the past, when schools were divided into Catholic, Protestant, and public schools. Following the influx of low-skilled immigrants in the 1950s and 1960s, however—especially Surinamese and Antilleans from former Dutch colonies, Moroccans, and Turks—native Dutch parents began selecting schools that were attended mostly by native-Dutch children, segregating the children of immigrants to predominantly “black” schools. Today, approximately 500 black schools operate in the Netherlands. (Hamilton 2015) According to Mohammed Jaater, the policy assistant for the Department of Education: “Even though a school is not allowed to officially refuse children, it may use many strategies to deter certain families from bringing their child to a school. Schools may emphasize the identity of the school. For example, a school with a particular religious affiliation may place obstacles in the way of Muslim families. Also, many immigrant families are deterred by schools’ requests for high voluntary monetary donations. While giving money is never required, schools may choose not to emphasize this fact when addressing ethnic minorities. Currently, schools are not made accountable for their selection process so there is often no accurate documentation available which one may consult in cases of presumed (instrumental) discrimination.” Source: Arts and Nabha (2001) In Bulgaria, nearly 25 percent of Roma children ages 7–15 have never attended school, compared with 12 percent of ethnic Turks and only 6 percent of ethnic Bulgarians. Further, about 70 percent of ethnic Turks and 93 percent of Roma have not completed secondary education. By comparison, only 30 percent of ethnic Bulgarians have not completed secondary education (World Bank 2015c). Also, as shown in table 3, all economies surveyed have a law prohibiting discrimination on ethnic and religious grounds in education. Only Bulgaria and the Netherlands explicitly prohibit discrimination on sexual orientation and gender identity grounds, however.<sup>50</sup> In Morocco, worth noticing is the 2003 Circulaire Ministérielle 108, which introduced the teaching of Amazigh language in primary schools.<sup>51</sup> According to UNESCO, the reform contributed to increased school attendance, with the percentage of children who had never been to school falling from 9 percent in 2003 to 4 percent in 2009.<sup>52</sup> Table 3: Does the Law Explicitly Prohibit Discrimination on Ethnic, Religious, Sexual Orientation, and Gender Identity Grounds in Education?

||Bulgaria|Mexico|Morocco|Netherlands|Tanzania|Vietnam|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|Ethnic minorities|ü|ü|ü|ü|ü|ü|
|Religious minorities|ü|ü|ü|ü|ü|ü|
|Sexual orientation|ü|||ü|||
|Gender identity|ü|||ü|||

_Source_ : World Bank Equality Project.

> 50 Bulgaria explicitly prohibits discrimination in education based on sexual orientation and gender identity grounds in the Protection Against Discrimination Act but not in its education law. Bulgaria recently passed a law on preschool and school education which entered into force in August 2016. Although articles 3, 4, 5, and 7 of the law include various antidiscrimination provisions, they do not explicitly mention LGBTI communities as a protected group. http://www.mon.bg/?go=page&pageId=7&subpageId=57. 51 Circulaire ministérielle 108, 2003.

> 52 UNESCO 2014.

Anti-Discrimination Law and Shared Prosperity 18