Opening remarks on the 12th Minority Forum 28.11.2019 Astrid Thors Your Excellences; Cher Rapporteur and Co-chair Ladies and gentlemen Education is the most important policy area in the society; as education is key for the future. Let me put forward three questions and one remark: The remark :: Without education article 4.2 of the UN declaration on the rights of minorities is meaningless : - the article that urges states to take measures to create favourable conditions to enable persons belonging to minorities to develop their culture, language, traditions…. This can not done without the same persons having the linguistic skills which make such a development possible. And such linguistic skills are developed through education. I am also very satisfied that we today are concentrating on groups with linguistic needs, beacuse I sense that linguistic minorities are easily forgotten under the dominance of religious or ethnic minorities. And now the questions: 1. Sustainable development goal 4 : The goal 4 commits member states to strive to provide inclusive and quality education and to promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. - how much have we noted the lifelong learning and what does means for minority education - There will be such a demand for lifellong learning if citizens are to cope in a more and more digitalised world.This means that we need to look not only at the formal educational system. How is life long learning working for minority populations ? Do our present declarations on minority rights take that sufficiently into account ? is there enough informal education in the mother tongue of minorities, so that minority populations will not suffer even more under the digital divide ? And talking about SDGs, let us make the most out of SDG thematic indicator 4.5.2 that encourages member states to report the “ percentage of students in primary education whose first or home language is the language of instruction - that will enable us to indentify the most precarious situations in general for minority populations 2 Lack of relevant resources and teacher training From the regional fora, - this new invention we commend the SR for very much, we saw clear reporting on the benefits of minority education, that the eventual extra costs will soon be covered. But have we paied enough attention to the increased lack of of good textbooks for the minorty pupils ? Too often minority pupils have to use outdated textbooks and material, and their books are not updated with the same speed as that for the majority.