A/51/536 English Page 10 32. Estonia stated that the new 1993 Law on Cultural Autonomy for Ethnic Minorities granted all national minorities the right to establish private but State-financed schools, in which a minority’s own language served as the language of instruction. In addition to numerous Russian language schools, a Swedish and Jewish minority language school had been established. Belarusians, Finns, Ukrainians and Armenians had some primary school classes where their languages were used in the classroom. In addition, several other ethnic minority groups arranged lessons in their native languages and culture at Sunday schools, as a first step towards opening full-fledged schools in their native languages. 33. In Germany, Länder legislation on school education took into account the interest of persons belonging to national minorities and ethnic groups in using and being educated in the minority language. State assistance was provided for the preservation of the language of minorities and ethnic groups in school education, wherever feasible and justified in terms of the number of students. Depending on the student’s linguistic background, the language in question was either used as a medium of instruction or was taught as a language. Such education was available at all school levels, starting with municipal and private kindergartens and including both public and private schools maintained by the national minority, which received the same financial support from the State as public schools. 34. In October 1995, the Government of Greece passed a new law regulating matters pertaining to the education of the minority in Thrace. The law aimed at upgrading the quality of the education afforded to Muslim Greek citizens and at facilitating their educational development. In order to increase the quality and continuity of teaching in minority schools, the law required that teacher training graduate studies, foreign language skills, and familiarity with other cultures, civilizations, and religious practices be taken into account during the appointment of teachers to minority schools. Furthermore, the law established special financial and retirement incentives for teachers who chose to teach at minority schools. Finally, the law established an affirmative action programme for the admission of Muslim minority students to Greek higher educational institutions (universities and technical institutes). The law provided for a minimum quota for minority students, thus offsetting the disadvantages faced by many Muslim students during the national university entrance examinations, owing mostly to Greek language difficulties, and facilitating their integration into the social fabric of the country. The Greek State also provided substantial financial support for the operational expenses of minority schools and new minority primary and secondary schools were currently being constructed. 35. The Government of Iceland stated that primary schools were open to all children without discrimination on the basis of, inter alia, residence, social class or religion. Although priority was granted to teaching Icelandic, care was taken to respect the rights of immigrants to maintain their mother tongue and culture. The Ministry of Education had financed an experiment in mother-tongue instruction, in which a group of pupils from Viet Nam received teaching and training in their mother tongue concurrently with teaching in Icelandic. That experiment was intended to provide information on whether mother-tongue instruction had a direct influence on how rapidly and how well /...