UNITED NATIONS • Forum on Minority Issues 3 Women and girl members of minority communities suffer disproportionately from lack of access to education and from high illiteracy levels. Lack of education represents an absolute barrier to their progress and empowerment. 4. Bad education strategies can violate human rights as much as good strategies enhance rights and freedoms. Unwanted assimilation imposed through the medium of education, or enforced social segregation generated through educational processes, are harmful to the rights and interests of minority communities and to the wider social interest. 5. In the context of rights and obligations recognized at the level of the United Nations and regionally, education should serve the dual function of supporting the efforts of communities to self-development in economic, social and cultural terms while opening pathways by which they can function in the wider society and promote social harmony. 6. The present recommendations, while framed as recommendations for Government action, are intended for a wider readership of not only Governments but, in the terms of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “every individual and every organ of society”, including international organizations and agencies, civil society in the widest sense, all educators and those who learn from them. 7. The range of issues included in the recommendations is not exhaustive. They represent only minimum requirements for an effective education strategy for minorities, without prejudice to further efforts made by individual States to address the needs of individuals and groups concerned. The recommendations should be interpreted in a generous spirit in cooperation with the communities concerned, in the light of the demand that human rights instruments be interpreted and standards applied to be effective in practice, so that they can make a real difference to the lives of human beings. In the event of doubt or contestation with regard to their potential application, the principles should be interpreted in favour of members of minorities as bearers of rights but also as potential victims of educational deprivation. 8. The recommendations are phrased in broad terms and can be implemented in countries with diverse historical, cultural and religious backgrounds, with full respect for universal human rights. 4 Compilation of Recommendations of the First Four Sessions 2008 to 2011