MNA Feature Desk: This year’s International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples is devoted to the right to education for indigenous people.
Indigenous peoples frequently face stigmatization of their cultural identity and lack of admiration and recognition for their heritage and values, including in textbooks and other educational ingredients.
Moreover, their marginalization is often compounded by language obstacles as instruction is primarily in the national language, with little or no instruction in, or recognition of, indigenous languages.
The right to education is fundamental and indigenous knowledge systems hold many answers to mitigating the consequences of climate change.
There are an estimated 370 million indigenous people in the world, living across 90 countries. They make up less than 5% of the world’s population, but account for 15% of the poorest.
They speak an overwhelming majority of the world’s estimated 7,000 languages and represent 5,000 different cultures.
By resolution 49/214 of 23 December 1994, the United Nations General Assembly decided that the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples shall be observed on 9 August every year.
The date marks the day of the first meeting, in 1982, of the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations of the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights.
The right of indigenous peoples to education is protected by the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which in Article 14 states that “Indigenous peoples have the right to establish and control their educational systems and institutions providing education in their own languages, in a manner appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning.”
The right of indigenous peoples to education is also protected by a number of other international human rights instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The education sector not only mirrors the historical abuses, discrimination and marginalization suffered by indigenous peoples, but also reflects their continued struggle for equality and respect for their rights as peoples and as individuals.