A/HRC/28/57/Add.1 involved. It is important to hear and acknowledge the narratives of all sides of a conflict in order to better promote mutual understanding, and thereby reconciliation, and also to enable contemporary challenges of exclusion and violence to be addressed. 27. In her discussions with officials, the Special Rapporteur noted that the objectives of history teaching, especially in secondary schools, were several and seemingly of equal importance: learning about and understanding events that took place in the past; preserving the traditions, moral values and cultural identity of the Vietnamese people; preserving Viet Nam as a nation; and promoting patriotism. For example, family traditions are integrated in history teaching with a view to minimizing the divorce rate and fostering care for family elders. Connections between pupils/students and the military are promoted through, for example, exchanges with military schools and activities for students to engage with military officers and cadets (trainees). In that regard, the Special Rapporteur draws the attention of the Vietnamese authorities to her recommendation (A/68/296, para. 88 (a)) that history teaching should not serve the purpose of strengthening patriotism, fortifying national identity or shaping the young in line with the official ideology. Such purposes are not in keeping with history being taught as an academic discipline. 28. History teachers in Viet Nam do try to find new ways of teaching history so as to make it more interesting and relevant for students, focusing less on remembering dates and offering greater possibilities to access reliable additional information. Efforts are under way to foster the use of cultural heritage as a resource in education and training, including by means of visits to historical sites, thanks to a 2013 agreement between the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Education. Teachers are encouraged to use the Internet to access additional materials and to motivate students to find supplementary information through library reference books and online research. The Special Rapporteur welcomes those steps and encourages the Government to increase its efforts in that direction. 29. As teachers are expected to guide students regarding where to find reliable additional information, a crucial question is whether teachers themselves have access to a sufficiently wide array of such information, and how do they help students to distinguish between what is reliable and what is not. 30. In Ho Chi Minh City, the Special Rapporteur was informed that history teachers were expected to keep themselves up to date. School teachers meet on a monthly basis and report narratives that conflict with what is considered to be the historical truth to the City History Council under the City Department of Education and Training. The Department, which is composed of former and experienced history teachers with close relationships with academia, ensures the harmonization of history teaching in all schools. Although there are debates amongst teachers on historical narratives, teachers follow the official curricula and use official government-recognized historical sources. 31. The participation of teachers in the elaboration and development of the history programme and lessons seems limited, but the Government has launched a programme for teachers to post their history lessons on the Internet. Delegations from the Ministry of Education go to schools to gather teachers’ feedback on textbooks. Some teachers indicated that they could report flaws in official textbooks and share their assessment of the online library provided by the Ministry of Education. Discussions with teachers do not seem to indicate, however, that this is well implemented in practice. 32. The school curriculum requires that a certain amount of time be devoted to local history. While this is important, it does not guarantee the introduction of a multiperspective approach. Some interlocutors complained that history teaching focused on the history of the Kinh majority and disregarded the history and cultural heritage of groups and minorities such as the Cham, the Khmer people of the Mekong Delta (who also sometimes selfidentify as Khmer Krom) and groups in the Central Highlights, commonly referred to as 8