Indigenous education.

I was an indigenous child once--a long time ago. I would like you to come with me on a journey and imagine the life experience of the indigenous child. You arrive at school with a rich cultural background and find yourself facing an expectation that you should have accessed pre-school education, but, of course, you had no access to such things--even access to basic education is a luxury.

On your first day, you find that the teachers do not speak your language; in fact, they don't even want you to speak your language. The teachers don't know anything about your culture. They say, "Look at me when I speak to you"--even though in your culture it may be disrespectful to look at adults directly. Day by day, you are torn between two worlds. You look through the many textbooks and find no reflections of yourself or your family or culture. Even in the history books your people are invisible--as if they never existed or were "shadow people" or worse. If your people are mentioned at all, they are mentioned as "obstacles to settlement" or simply as "problems" for your country to overcome.

But children are tough and somehow you survive in this environment. You notice as you reach secondary school, however, that many of your indigenous brothers and sisters have dropped out. Did they fail school or did the school fail them? By senior high school, when you are the only one left, the teachers say, "You are not like the others." In your heart, you know that you are.

All too often, this is the educational experience of indigenous children: that while there are those who have the luxury of access to formal schooling, many do not. In the Second Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, many indigenous representatives discussed common education issues, including poor retention, attainment, and graduation rates throughout the compulsory and non-compulsory years of schooling. Many also discussed overt and systemic racism and marginalization faced by indigenous young people. Some representatives emphasized the link between access to, and success in, early childhood education and ongoing success in later schooling and life.

But indigenous peoples do not come to you with problems for you to solve--we come to you with our own answers and we ask your assistance in ensuring that these solutions are systematically and fully implemented.

These solutions include:

Participation

* 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, young people, and other community members.

* Increase the number of indigenous peoples employed as education administrators, teachers, coaches, curriculum advisers, teacher's assistants, home-school liaison officers, and other education workers, including community people engaged in teaching indigenous culture, history and contemporary society, and indigenous languages.

* Provide education and training services to develop the skills of indigenous people to participate in educational decision-making.

* Develop arrangements for the provision of independent advice from indigenous communities regarding education decisions at all levels.

* Achieve the participation of indigenous children, young people, and adults in education for a period similar to that for other students.

Access

* Ensure that indigenous children, young people, and adults have access to all levels of education (including adult education) on a basis comparable to that available to other citizens.

Attainment

* Enable indigenous students to attain skills and graduation rates to the same standard as other students throughout the compulsory and noncompulsory schooling years.

Indigenous Languages, Proficiency in the Lingua Franca, and Numeracy 

* Develop programs to support the maintenance and continued use of indigenous languages.

* Enable the attainment of proficiency in the lingua franca and numeracy competencies by all indigenous students, including indigenous adults.

Capacity Building

* Provide community education services, which enable indigenous people to develop the skills to manage the development of their communities.

Appreciation, Understanding, and Respect for Indigenous Cultures

* Enable all students at all levels of education to have an appreciation of, understanding of, and respect for traditional and contemporary indigenous histories, cultures, and identities.

Anti-Racism Strategies

* Promote anti-racism education, including strategies to empower young people to deal with racism in the compulsory schooling curriculum.

Self-determination

* Provide indigenous peoples the resources and support to establish their own education systems, including schools, should they so choose. Also, traditional indigenous education and its structures should be respected and supported.

Indigenous peoples believe that the full and effective implementation of these strategies will lead to equitable educational attainment for indigenous children and young people.

In conclusion, I would like to draw your attention to the UNESCO document titled "Achieving Universal Primary Education." This is an important paper, but what disappoints me is, that despite the appalling statistics (1) concerning indigenous children and education--statistics that tell us that indigenous children's educational outcomes are well below that of the rest of the populations in countries in which they live--this paper does not mention indigenous peoples as a vulnerable group.

At the same time, I applaud the Dakar EFA Goals and the Millennium Development Goals, especially the first three:

The Dakar Goals

1. Expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood care and education, especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children

2. Ensuring that by 2015 all children, particularly girls, children in difficult circumstances, and those belonging to ethnic minorities, have access to and complete free and compulsory primary education of good quality

3. Ensuring that the learning needs of all young people and adults are met through equitable access to appropriate learning and life skills programmes.

I want to stress that we are not simply "living in difficult circumstances" or "ethnic minorities"--we are the original inhabitants of our traditional lands and waters; we are proudly "indigenous." And I ask that we all strive together to ensure that indigenous peoples become visible and that we participate in matters that affect us. Most of all, we must ensure that these goals are achieved for indigenous children.

Note:

(1) Statistics concerning indigenous education, where available on a country-by-country basis, show that indigenous children are a most vulnerable group in terms of poor participation and attainment in formal education.

Ole-Henrik Magga Ole-Henrik Magga is Chairperson of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.