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Addressee: UNICEF, UNESCO
Full Text
The Permanent Forum recommends that the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and UNESCO reinforce quality education by building indigenous knowledge and culture into education programmes and curricula, including education for sustainable development and for natural disaster preparedness, and promoting the use of indigenous language as the medium of instruction. The important role of indigenous learning methodologies, including experiential learning with community members outside of the classroom, should also be included.
Responses
UNESCO reports on a recently completed a project engaging indigenous communities from Niger, Kenya and the Central African Republic in a dialogue on the ways in which their cultural heritage and traditional knowledge can be applied to education for a sustainable future, within the framework of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014). UNESCO also mentions the San Development Programme, through which it addresses the educational and social needs of San children in Namibia and Southern Africa. UNESCO also mentions that the UNESCO-LINKS programme has undertaken several initiatives aimed to integrate indigenous knowledge into school curricula. A learning resource pack was developed in 2008 to accompany the interactive LINKS CD-ROM learning tool entitled The Canoe is the People: Indigenous Navigation in the Pacific
Final Report of UNPFII Session 7 (2008)
Area of Work
