MESSAGE from Mr Nicholas BURNETT, Assistant Director-General for Education, UNESCO, to the First United Nations Forum on Minorities and the Right to Education, Geneva 15-16 Dec. 2008 As this forum opens, millions of children and adults remain deprived of their right to education. Some 75 million children who should be in primary school today are not. Some 776 million adults – one in five – lack the most basic literacy skills to escape poverty, improve their livelihoods and participate in our knowledge-intensive societies. As the main UN agency charged with education, UNESCO welcomes this First United Nations Forum on Minority Issues devoted to Minorities and the Right to Education. Let me take this opportunity to thank and congratulate Professor McDougall, Independent Expert on Minority Issues, and the High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay for organizing this Forum. I know from Judge Pillay’s remarks at the recent international Conference on Education how committed she is to inclusive education. I also acknowledge Viktoria Mohasci’s commitment from our time working together on setting up the Roma Education Fund and Decade. This Forum takes place at a critical time. Throughout this year we have celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 26 stipulates that “everyone has the right to education.” Since then a number of important treaties and normative instruments have reaffirmed this right. All these instruments are rooted in the same principle: non-discrimination on any basis whatsoever. There has been notable, even historic progress towards access to universal education since 2000. There are 40 million more children in primary school than in