A/HRC/12/32 page 14 home to perform domestic chores and to care for children and siblings, being married off at a young age, and ongoing exclusion and discrimination. She said that instruments of dialogue to help mediate conflicting issues and norms within indigenous societies could include measures to ensure equal access to education for indigenous girls and women. She further stated that donors and international agencies should prioritize indigenous peoples’ right to education within their programmes and strengthen developing countries’ capacities to meet the educational needs of indigenous peoples. Financial support for development of materials, testing curricula and adequate support and incentives for teachers to teach in rural schools is limited, or unavailable. She noted the lack of well-trained, culturally competent teachers as a serious problem which could be resolved through recruitment and deployment of teachers from the community. 45. The Chairperson-Rapporteur stated that discrimination and prejudice against indigenous peoples’ participation in the planning, programming and implementation of curriculum development posed another major challenge. Education was usually centrally controlled by Governments, and, in many countries, educational activities not employing government curriculum were scrutinized. She concluded by saying that such barriers must be reviewed, with an objective of reforming education laws and policies to be more inclusive and sensitive to indigenous values and perspectives. Reforms should also emphasize indigenous peoples’ decision-making authority. 46. The Chairperson-Rapporteur invited delegations to make general statements on the draft study and provide concrete suggestions to improve the draft under agenda item 3. Several States, including Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Guatemala, Mexico, Nepal, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Turkey, United States of America and Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of) took the floor to commend the Expert Mechanism for its work on the draft study which they found very informative, constructive and useful. Many States expressed the view that the Expert Mechanism contribution was helpful to their own reflections on how best to improve the educational opportunities available to their indigenous populations, and provided a useful tool for States to examine their own efforts to improve education in indigenous communities. They provided information on the state of implementation of the right to education for indigenous peoples in their respective countries while underlining the challenges in ensuring quality education that is culturally appropriate. 47. Some good examples were provided regarding programmes for the protection, conservation and development of languages or dialects of indigenous communities, including preparation of curricula and textbooks in languages spoken by indigenous peoples, and comprehensive and targeted scholarship schemes implemented to assist students from indigenous communities to attend tertiary-level education. 48. The Expert Mechanism was encouraged to provide examples as to how States with many ethnic communities could best cope with the need for enhanced resources to finance such endeavours, and how to strike a balance between the right to impart education in the mother tongues of indigenous communities and the need to impart quality education, or even learn mainstream international languages to empower them and to help them compete with their national and international counterparts. 49. Efforts to ensure quality education and bilingual education were highlighted. In some States, priority was being given to strengthening bilingual education through consultations with