Recognizing the right of members of national minorities to carry out their own educational activities.

 

Indigenous peoples and minorities experience specific vulnerabilities in education and are often deprived of quality education due to their background or the cultural, linguistic or financial barriers that they face. It is estimated that 40% of the world’s population cannot access education in a language they speak or understand (UNESCO-GEM Report, 2016), and in some regions this percentage is considerably higher. Minorities and indigenous peoples may avail of non-discrimination and equality clauses under the CADE and the ICESCR, although they are not specified groups, while under the CRC, indigenous peoples are given specific attention under article 30 where it is stated that a ‘child (...) who is indigenous shall not be denied the right, in community with other members of his or her group, to enjoy his or her own culture, to profess and practice his or her own religion, or to use his or her own language’. The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007) comprehensively promotes the rights of indigenous peoples, including their “right to establish and control their educational systems and institutions providing education in their own languages, in a manner appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning” (article 14). National minorities are given particular attention under article 5(1)(c) of the CADE, where States have agreed on the importance of specifically recognizing the right of members of national minorities to carry out their own educational activities, including school maintenance and, depending on the educational policy of the individual State, the use or teaching of their own language, provided certain quality and access standards are met. The UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging toNational or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities (1992), under article 4 (3) protects minorities’ rights to learn their mother tongue or to receive instruction in their mother tongue. The Education 2030 Framework for Action further specifies that vulnerable groups requiring particular attention include indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities. Despite this, laws and regulations to protect these groups are lacking in national contexts.

The rights of minorities and indigenous peoples to mother tongue-based multilingual learning was felt to be of great importance to several respondents to the Global Conversation. One survey response from Costa Rica described the Ministry of Public Education’s progressive education policies, such as the Bilingual Indigenous Education Program and the Protocol Against Situations of RacialDiscrimination, Xenophobia and all other Forms of Discrimination in the Education Centres, as a positive first step towards the integration of indigenous culture in education. The advancement of a right to education in one’s mother tongue could work to overcome some of the systemic disadvantages that indigenous peoples’ and minorities face in education. Other responses to the Global Conversation thought that their national education systems should focus on pedagogy and content, which are often misaligned with indigenous ways of learning and knowing. Along this vein, New Zealand has reported that the 1989 Education Act includes provisions for parents who wish to have their child educated in te reo Māori and schools have the option of two school curricula - the New Zealand curriculum and Te Marataunga o Aotearoa