HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL Forum on Minority Issues Geneva, 15-16 December 2008 Mr. Sameer Nooraldeen Hasan 2008 OHCHR Minority Fellow National Institute for Human Rights, Iraq E-mail: sameernhassan@gmail.com Intervention for item VII of the provisional agenda The Content and Delivery of the Curriculum Chairman of the Forum on Minority Issues Ladies and gentlemen in attendance I am pleased and honored to be one of the participants and speakers in this Forum on Minority Issues. Mr. Chairman, It is well known that the issue of education is of great importance in the exercise of one’s rights as stated in the relevant international treaties and this right must be exercised properly. So, we as minorities, have a glimmer of hope in exercising our right to education in our mother tongue in the Federal Republic of Iraq and as stated in the Constitution. Upon returning to the reality on the ground, there are wrong policies put in place by some political parties in the decision-making body and to cite a few indications of one of Iraq’s provinces on the policies of diversities, minorities and nationalities of Kirkuk, which is located to the north of Baghdad. The policies are as follows: 1. The imposition of teaching only a single language without providing an opportunity to learn other major and secondary languages in the country and especially in the province of Kirkuk. 2. The building of competent educational institutions only for certain groups excluding the involvement of others in those institutions for the procession of the cultures in the multi-ethnic society. 3. The enforcement of the use of the old curriculum without allowing development in the curriculum to disallow the capacity of the students to keep up with the pace of the global education system 4. The enforcement of curriculums in sub-dialects of the national language that do not correspond to the tone used by the inhabitants in the province of Kirkuk. 5. The lack of textbooks and essential provisional services in the schools that teach the national language to minorities in the province of Kirkuk.