I really want to write about calypso and to share my 2009 composition with you too but education is my constant friend and companion and it does not have to jostle with the crowd of my other interest so today I will share on the field of Education as a Human Right.

Last December I was accepted for participation in the first United Nations Forum on Minority Issues in Geneva as a Rastafari representative. However, we failed to fundraise adequately and I could not go. The purpose of the Forum is to “…provide a platform for promoting dialogue and cooperation on issues pertaining to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities, which shall provide thematic contributions and expertise to the work of the independent expert on minority. The Forum shall identify and analyze best practices, challenges, opportunities and initiatives for the further implementation of the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities. The theme of the first Forum was “Minorities and the right to education,” and my assignment was to bring to attention the continued infringement of the rights of Rastafari children in Caribbean schools.
The Report on the 1st Forum is now being disseminated and selected recommendations are being shared with you today. Of course I selected the ones of greatest pertinence to my aborted mission but you will notice, as I did, that they are also quite relevant to Anguilla in 2009. The Recommendations have been organised under the following headings:
I. Education
II. Core Principles
III. Essential Requirements for an Effective Education Strategy
IV. Equal Access to Quality Education for Minorities
V. Learning Environment
VI. Content and Delivery of the Curriculum

Education
1. Education is an inalienable human right, and is more than a mere commodity or a service. Furthermore, education is a human right that is crucial to the realization of a wide array of other human rights, and an indispensable agency for the expansion of human capabilities and the enhancement of human dignity. Education plays a formative role in socialization for democratic citizenship and represents an essential support for community identity. It is also a primary means by which individuals and communities can sustainably lift themselves out of poverty and a means of helping minorities to overcome the legacies of historical injustice or discrimination committed against them.
4. Bad education strategies can violate human rights as much as good strategies enhance rights and freedoms. Unwanted assimilation imposed through the medium of education, or enforced social segregation generated through educational processes, are harmful to the rights and interests of minority communities and to the wider social interests.

Core Principles
11. The principle of equality does not imply uniform treatment in the field of education regardless of circumstances, but rather differential treatment of individuals and groups is justified when specified circumstances warrant it, so that the right to equal treatment is also violated when States, without permissible justification, fail to treat differently persons whose situations are significantly different. The principle of non-discrimination implies that persons belonging to minorities should not be treated differently in the field of education solely on the basis of their particular ethnic, religious or cultural characteristics, unless there are permissible criteria to justify such distinctions, including criteria set out in specific instruments on minority rights…

14. Minorities have a right to participate in the life of the State and in decisions affecting them and their children’s future. In the field of education, this right implies input by minorities into the design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of education programmes and the administration of educational institutions. It also means that an alternative to mainstream curricula may be considered in order to meet the needs, aspirations and priorities of minorities.

Essential Requirements
25. Educational services should be arranged in order that they reach minority communities throughout the national territory and should be adequate to address the needs of such communities. States must ensure that educational services for minorities are delivered at a quality that is comparable with national standards.

26. States should recognise that adequate recruitment, training, and incentivization of teachers to work in areas inhabited predominantly by members of minorities are factors of utmost importance in the delivery of adequate educational services, and should arrange teacher training programmes accordingly.

Equal Access
30. Members of minorities must have realistic and effective access to quality educational services without discrimination, within the jurisdiction of the State. Accessibility has three overlapping dimensions: non-discrimination on prohibited grounds, physical accessibility and economic accessibility.

42. Programmes of adult education or “second chance” schools should be encouraged and increased for members of minorities who have not completed primary education levels.

Learning Environment
44. Human Rights Education for all should be made an integral part of the national educational experience.

52. School management and administration should actively involve representatives from minority communities.

Content and Delivery
With regard to the right to manifest religion in schools or educational institutions, forums for continuous dialogue should be developed where necessary between members of religious minorities and educational institutions that serve them with the view to better understanding and accommodating their religious needs within schools.
For those interested in perusing the entire report it can be found at:
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/10session/A.HRC.10.11.Add.1.pdf

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