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Addressee: Member States

Paragraph Number: 48
Session: 4 (2005)
Full Text:

States should:
(a) Endorse intercultural education as national policy priority to ensure equal access for indigenous children to quality and culturally appropriate primary education, as stipulated in the Convention on the Right of the Child; (b) Increase substantially State budgetary allocations in order to meet Millennium Development Goal 2 for indigenous children; c) Increase funding for Goal 2 for indigenous children through bilateral and multilateral cooperation; (d) Review current national curricula and textbooks to erase culturally discriminatory materials and enhance knowledge of indigenous cultures; (e) Establish effective arrangements for the participation of indigenous parents and community members in decisions regarding the planning, delivery and evaluation of education services for their children, including in the designing and implementation of their own education at all levels, including developing appropriate teaching materials and methods; (f) Ensure an increase in the number of indigenous persons in the educational sectors, including in policy, administration, teaching indigenous culture, history and contemporary society, indigenous languages and production of educational materials; (g) Ensure that indigenous children have access to free primary quality education; (h) Eliminate national policies and practices that create further difficulties for indigenous children to enjoy their right to education, such as the request for birth certificates for the enrolment of children and the refusal to accept indigenous names and traditional dress in schools; (i) Develop bilingual and culturally appropriate primary education for indigenous children to reduce dropout rates. The mother tongue must be the first learning language and the national language the second language; curricula should reflect indigenous peoples' holistic worldviews, knowledge systems, histories, spiritual values and physical activities, physical education and sports; (j) Recognize that isolation is a major obstacle that prevents indigenous peoples from fully enjoying their right to education. States should establish best practices, such as residential or boarding schools, where they have worked positively, and mobile and seasonal schools or the use of technologies, such as remote teaching and the Internet, to reach the most isolated and remote indigenous communities; (k) support enrolment of indigenous persons in teacher-training programs, colleges and relevant higher educational institutions; (l) Develop school curricula for indigenous peoples in cooperation with other Governments at the regional level in order to maximize the sustainable use of resources in this area; (m) Develop monitoring guidelines and indicators for achieving Goal 2 regarding indigenous children and set benchmarks in that regard; (n) In the context of the Millennium Development Goals, particularly the achievement of primary universal education, the Forum recommends that States, the United Nations system and other intergovernmental organizations pay attention to intercultural bilingual education for indigenous peoples at the preschool, primary and tertiary levels

Area of Work: MDGs, Education

Addressee: World Bank

Paragraph Number: 48
Session: 6 (2007)
Full Text:

The Permanent Forum welcomes the initiative of the World Bank in compiling and analysing disaggregated data on indigenous peoples, poverty and human development in South-East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, and urges the World Bank to present the results of those studies to the seventh session of the Permanent Forum in 2008.

Area of Work: Economic and Social Development