We can state that Hungarian minority education has a tradition of several centuries. However, this proud statement is certainly shaded by some historical periods of minority policy and minority education policy, when, in contrast to the current liberal regulation, this area was intended to serve ideological and national political interests. Let us think of education policy of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries serving the strenghtening of hungarian national identity, as the same in the period between the two World Wars, or the minority interest representation subordinated to the internationalist friendship policy of the socialist decades. Our doubts increase if we take a closer look at the educational rights related to the Roma population, because in this case, only the times after the change of regime bring the same - at least legally identical - opportunities in the field of cultural autonomy, providing the same legal framework as in the case of other officially recognized minorities, and unfortunately maintaining the same real difference in real opportunities that has always put this minority group at a disadvantage.