Education special minority rights group international State of theWorld’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2009 Events of 2008 State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2009 Acknowledgements Minority Rights Group International Minority Rights Group International (MRG) 54 Commercial Street, London, E1 6LT, United gratefully acknowledges the support of all organizations Kingdom. Tel +44 (0)20 7422 4200, Fax +44 (0)20 and individuals who gave financial and other assistance 7422 4201, Email [email protected] to this publication, including UNICEF and the Website www.minorityrights.org European Commission. Getting involved Minority Rights Group International MRG relies on the generous support of institutions Minority Rights Group International (MRG) is a and individuals to further our work. 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The Design by Texture +44(0)20 7739 7123 contents of this document are the sole responsibil- Edited by Preti Taneja Printed in the UK ity of Minority Rights Group International and can Education Adviser: Amina Osman under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the Cover photo: A Roma girl in school in Skopje, position of the European Union or UNICEF. Macedonia. Mikkel Ostergaard/Panos. Minority Rights Group International Inside cover photo: A San boy at a community school in Botswana. Giacomo Pirozzi/Panos. in association with UNICEF 6 Foreword 82 A positively plurilingual world: Gay J. McDougall, UN Independent promoting mother tongue education Expert on Minority Issues Claire Thomas John B. Henriksen, Chairperson- Rapporteur, UN Expert Mechanism on Part 2: Regional overviews the rights of indigenous peoples 92 Africa Sophie Elmhirst Part 1: Protecting and promoting the 118 Americas right to education Maurice Bryan 12 A world of discrimination 146 Asia Mark Curtis Snježana Bokulić, Emma Eastwood and 24 Overcoming exclusion in education Farah Mihlar Yusuf Sayed 182 Europe 36 Case Study: Challenges in policy and Snježana Bokulić practice: pastoralists and nomadic peoples 200 Middle East Amina Osman Kate Washington 42 Fulfilling the right to education for Part 3: Reference minority and indigenous children: where are we in international legal 214 Peoples under threat 2009 standards? 222 Status of ratification of major Vanessa Sedletzki international and regional 54 The importance of ethnic data for instruments relevant to minority promoting the right to education and indigenous rights Zoë Gray Compiled by Marusca Perazzi 64 Case Study: using racial data to improve 234 Recommendations on education of the education for minority children in UN Forum on Minority Issues 2008 the USA 241 Who are minorities? Daniel J. Losen 242 Selected abbreviations 70 The gender dimension of minority and indigenous education 243 Contributors Kathryn Ramsay 247 Acknowledgements s the UN Independent Expert on for white children. There was little doubt that black Minority Issues, over the past three years children were always denied the best equipment, A I have travelled to countries in practically books and opportunities for advanced courses. We every region of the world. I have talked extensively had a bare skeleton of the full education experience to people who belong to disadvantaged minori- afforded to the children of the white community. ties on every continent. When I ask them to tell But we had caring teachers who laboured with lit- me their greatest problem, their most deeply felt tle support to overcome all of the educational defi- concern, the answer is always the same. They are cits that had been created by racial prejudice. The concerned that their children are not getting a qual- remarkable thing was that at times they were able to ity education because they are minorities. They see succeed. Most often, they could not. educating their children as the only way out of their Worldwide, minority children suffer dispropor- poverty; their under-dog status, their isolation. tionately from unequal access to quality educa- This is a plight that resonates with my own personal tion. Disadvantaged minorities are far more likely story. Slaves in the USA were denied the right to learn to receive an inferior education than a good one. to read and write: those in charge realized that knowl- Disadvantaged minority children are more likely edge inexorably leads to freedom. Slaves who learned to start school later than the prescribed age, if at in secret were subject to severe physical abuse. all; they are less likely to be ready or well prepared The public education system in the south of the for school; and more prone to drop out or fail to USA was created to address the education needs of achieve in school. That perpetuates the cycle of pov- recently emancipated slaves. That promise, however, erty, leaving them unable to later fulfil their human Foreword was short lived. For nearly a century after slavery potential, to gain meaningful employment and to ended, African Americans in the southern states become respected members of society. Gay J. McDougall of the USA were segregated into grossly inferior Minority girls are disadvantaged, both as a group schools. Even when the Supreme Court in the 1954 and as a sub-group of the disadvantaged. They are landmark decision of Brown v. Board of Education the most likely to be totally excluded from school- United Nations Independent Expert decided that racially segregated schools violated the ing. Girls may face particular barriers to education US Constitution, what followed were decades of based on traditional or religious customs or prac- on Minority Issues white resistance to integrating the schools that at tices, including those governing their freedom to times turned violent. leave the home without a male escort. Their exclu- The struggle to achieve equal education regardless sion from education has a profound impact on their John B. Henriksen of race or class, and the struggle of white communi- ability to later claim other rights and achieve status ties to avoid integrated schools has been a defining in society, such as economic independence and free- dynamic in the US since the end of slavery. dom from domestic violence. Educated mothers are Chairperson-Rapporteur I am a product of inferior, racially segregated more likely to send their girls to school, to look after schools – but not a typical product. I was born in the health of their families and have smaller families. UN Expert Mechanism on the rights the apartheid-like southern state of Georgia when Educated women are less likely to be exposed to every aspect of life there was segregated along exploitation and risks such as HIV and AIDs. racial lines – most particularly, public education. In many countries, a primary problem is poverty of indigenous peoples The Supreme Court decided Brown v. Board of and the under-development of the country as a whole. Education when I was in primary school, but eleven In societies where there is long-standing endemic years later, when I graduated from secondary school, discrimination against particular minority groups, complete segregation was still the reality. they tend to be the poorest of the poor. Even when In my secondary school – the first ever for resources are available, disadvantaged minorities rarely black students in the state – there were upwards get a fair share. In some countries where resources may of 4,000 students crammed into an ageing and not be a major problem, the larger society may have neglected building.