World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples

The right to education is recognized in several international instruments, including: the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and International Labour Organization Convention 169.

Quality education for minorities and indigenous peoples leads to improved literacy rates. It also improves their opportunities, and increases their access to social and economic justice.

Our campaign seeks to address the obstacles to education experienced by minorities and indigenous peoples. It focuses on availability, accessibility, acceptability and adaptability. The former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education identified these themes.

Our goals

Over the next four years, we aim to:

• persuade authorities to put in place programmes to tackle barriers that prevent minority and indigenous girls and boys from attending or completing primary school;
• persuade authorities to put in place programmes to tackle barriers that prevent minority and indigenous women becoming literate; and,
• campaign for all national curricula and textbooks to include all communities positively, and for teachers to be trained in their use.

Examples of our project work

• Promoting the rights of religious minorities through education and training in Asia - the project will collect and design alternative curricula and materials in several countries. This will help to promote the right of children from religious minorities to education on an equal footing with other children.
• Promoting the rights of the Twa in Central Africa - This programme connects education with leadership training. It also aims to raise awareness of how Twa communities are denied access to the education that could help them overcome poverty and discrimination.
• Implementing minority rights in Turkey - This new project focuses, among other issues, on education, and especially the barriers to quality education faced by minority groups. Workshops will be held across the country to look at the issues, and to find solutions through advocacy and litigation.
• Roma advocacy project - This project, in conjunction with the South-East Europe programme, highlights the issues faced by Roma communities in accessing education.
• Kenya - A forthcoming report on Kenya will challenge the government to explain, and take steps to remedy, the vast differences in primary school attendance, school completion and literacy levels for different communities in Kenya.

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