Let us talk of “educations”

The conference started with the voices of children singing. The Sami class from Prestvannet skole, an elementary school in Tromsø, gave us four songs, all in the Sami language. And they gave us a reminder of what is at stake here: The future. Talking about education and school we are talking about the future.

Jannie Lasimbang from Malaysia gave the keynote address. She has until recently been leader of the Expert Mechanism of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. She took as her starting point the international perspective and efforts related to indigenous peoples and education. There are different areas and aspects to this, she stated.

First, she raised the question of education for indigenous peoples. A part of this is related to the issue of culture meetings, which are an implication of schooling in many areas. Culture meetings do not necessarily mean that they learn from one another. One may be pressed upon the others. And this is descriptive in many indigenous contexts.

Lasimbang also noted the importance of governments’ obligation to equip mainstream society with knowledge of indigenous issues and peoples and the attitudes on these matters.

From the keynote address, the conference moved on to its first roundtable. Jens Dahl of IWGIA (The International Work Group on Indigenous Affairs), pointed towards the international efforts. He said that there have been a lot of important achievements on the international level, mentioning the ILO 169, the Expert Mechanism of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the UN Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues, and the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.  Still, Dahl claimed, there is an unused potential for the international work.

Luis Enrique Lopez, President of the Executive Committee of FUNPROEIB Andes in Peru, took the situation in many Latin-American contexts as a starting point. Latin America has witnessed an increasing visibility of indigenous peoples and their political participation. As a consequence, the collective rights of indigenous peoples are recognized by a number of states. Still, when it comes to practices of education, little has happened, Lopez claimed: The ministries of education have not changed their traditional forms of education. Hence, there is an implementation gap also on this area.

Sheila Aikman, researcher at the University of East Anglia (UK), challenged the debate by pointing towards the distinction between “education” and “schooling”. They are not the same, she stated, even though there is a tendency to use them synonymously. Despite the importance of schooling, as a concept for education it is limited. The discourse on education needs to cover the broad and varied areas.

The best conclusion: Luis Lopez urged us all to start talking of “educations” rather than “education”.

By Torjer A. Olsen,
Chair, Forum for development cooperation with indigenous peoples