A/HRC/40/64/Add.2 28. As the Special Rapporteur has noted on other occasions, evidence from UNESCO and from global research institutes indicates that the quality and value of education increases when a child’s mother tongue is used as the medium of instruction at least in the initial six years of learning, where this is practical. Children who first learn in their own language acquire literacy and numeracy skills faster and more easily and also are able to learn additional languages more easily. Such children achieve better school results in school, stay in school longer and are less likely to drop out of school early. Minority children also develop higher self-esteem, as their language and culture are valued in the classroom, at the same time allowing their parents to be able to contribute to their children’s formative years by helping them with their learning in their own language when their child is at home. If mother tongue education is not possible, then teaching minority languages as part of the curriculum is usually considered an appropriate approach. This is also a human rights issue, as the obvious disadvantages for minority children who cannot use their mother tongue may constitute a discriminatory practice regarding the right to education when such instruction is practicable and reasonable. 29. From the comments made to him when visiting different regions, those the Special Rapporteur met recognized the benefits of learning English and Setswana in schools. No one expressed any opposition to the desirability of a unifying language. However, acquiring fluency in an official or national language does not need to exclude the use of one’s mother tongue in public – and even private – schools. Research in fact confirms that, by starting with the mother tongue, fluency in the official or national language will be more easily mastered. Moreover, contrary to widely held views, it is also more cost-effective. 30. Many individuals from minority communities mentioned their hope that their languages would be included and taught in public schools, a wish consistent with the Government’s own statement in its Vision 2036. 31. The Special Rapporteur was also informed that the Government had initiated a programme through which retired teachers who could speak minority languages were hired as teacher’s aides for grades one to three in primary school. However, it has appeared obvious that in practice this has not been implemented in most areas of the country, since there does not seem to be any consistent approach to the use of these teacher’s aides for communicating with students in their own languages. 32. Additionally, the Special Rapporteur was made aware that in the past in some areas of the country there had been public schools using minority languages for instruction during the first three grades of primary school. The example provided was that of the Kalanga minority and some schools in the North-East and Central Districts, which until 1972 had been using the Kalanga language as a medium of instruction. A 1972 Presidential Decree reversed that practice by replacing minority languages with the Tswana language. Even in private schools, the medium of instruction is only Tswana and English. In 2017, the John McKenzie private school’s proposal to introduce a pilot literacy project in the Kalanga language was rejected, apparently on the grounds of that practice being inconsistent with “national unity”. However, the Special Rapporteur was also informed that languages other than English or Setswana, such as French or Chinese, could be offered in the country’s public schools but apparently this was not allowed for any of the country’s minority languages. 33. Finally, in his 2009 report on the situation of indigenous peoples in Botswana (A/HRC/15/37/Add.2), the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people stated that the Government had acknowledged the need to train teachers to deliver mother tongue education and had said that it had begun working towards the implementation of mother tongue education programmes. That commitment appears to have been discarded. 34. The Special Rapporteur invites the ministries of education and of local government and rural development to review these policies of excluding the teaching of and instruction in minority languages in both public and private schools. These policies appear to be contrary to the goals expressed in Vision 2036 for the country to recognize the cultural heritage and identity that it must maintain and promote in order to achieve an inclusive and equal opportunity nation, as well as to enable all its communities to freely live, practise and 8