E/CN.4/2004/80/Add.2 page 17 F. Education, language and culture 49. In the 1960s the Ministry of Public Education inaugurated an indigenous educational curriculum at official primary schools, which eventually had several thousand bilingual teachers. A teaching method was designed with contents and methods suited to indigenous cultures, and primers were produced in the majority of indigenous languages, but the training of the bilingual teachers proved inadequate. The curriculum never received the necessary support and resources from the education authorities to become a genuine educational option for indigenous children. At the present time, the Intercultural Bilingual Education System covers 1,145,000 pupils from 47 indigenous peoples, with 50,300 teachers at 19,000 schools. The Ministry of Public Education’ estimates that 73.5 per cent of pupils complete bilingual primary education as compared with 86.3 per cent nationally. In response to insistent requests from indigenous organizations, three indigenous universities have been established (another is planned), as has the National Institute of Indigenous Languages. Twenty-five per cent of the indigenous population over 15 years of age is illiterate, women in a greater proportion than men. Thirty-nine per cent of the indigenous population between 5 and 24 years of age does not attend school. 50. To help preserve and spread indigenous cultures and guarantee indigenous cultural rights, community radio stations operate in certain areas, some with support from the National Commission for the Development of the Indigenous Peoples and private organizations. They work under difficult conditions and the Ministry of Communications has not provided them with the facilities they should have. The Government is currently in talks with the Mexican Network of Community Radio Stations and legislative proposals for ensuring the stations’ operation are under study. G. Constitutional reform and reconciliation with the indigenous peoples 51. The real importance of the wide-ranging debate on the rights of indigenous peoples to which the constitutional reform of 2001 gave rise becomes clear in the light of the tensions and disputes mentioned above and the impact on Mexican society of the EZLN uprising and its aftermath. The San Andrés Agreements between EZLN and the Federal Government in 1996 pointed to a political way out of the conflict in the form of the legislative initiatives drawn up by the Peace and Concord Commission (COCOPA) of the National Congress. Since this was not taken under the previous administration, President Fox decided in 2000 to pursue it as an initiative of the new Government. The ensuing constitutional reform included some aspects of what was known as the COCOPA Act, but departed significantly from it in other aspects of fundamental importance to the indigenous peoples. 52. As a result, the reform was rejected by the official national indigenous movement and the States with the largest indigenous populations did not ratify it. More than 300 indigenous municipalities later submitted constitutional challenges to the Supreme Court of Justice, seeking annulment of the procedure, but the Court declared them inadmissible. The indigenous peoples