A/HRC/18/35/Add.2 of schools providing Sami education, continued shortcomings include the lack of Sami teachers, although the Norway Sami Parliament noted that it has achieved positive results in increasing the number of Sami teachers through its “dream job” project, which provides scholarships to students in order to become teachers in Sami languages. Other problems include a lack of language teaching materials and Sami teaching aids, in particular in Lule Sami and South Sami, and insufficient financial resources granted to the Norwegian Sami parliament to carry out its educational tasks. 69. In Sweden, education in the Sami language is mainly guaranteed in the Swedish Sami schools created in the 1990s, which are administered by a Sami school board appointed by the Swedish Sami Parliament and located in the traditional Sami reindeer herding areas. Outside the Sami schools, students may be taught in their mother tongue, but only if a suitable teacher is available, and since there is a major shortage of teachers, this programme only reaches approximately 200 pupils yearly. Also, a municipality can choose to offer “Integrated Sami education” within its school system if it makes the proper arrangements with the Sami school board. Under this programme, instruction about Sami culture is offered as part of compulsory school curricula. However, according to reports, the Sami school board reportedly does not have sufficient funding to offer this programme for all of the students requesting it. Also, taken together, these three programmes still only reach about 10-20 per cent of compulsory school-age Sami children. 70. In Finland, education in the Sami language is guaranteed by law within the Sami homeland and under the Act on the Financing of Education and Culture, municipalities receive increased subsidies for teaching in the Sami language within the homeland area. However, there is no legislation or policy that guarantees education in the Sami language outside the core Sami area, where the majority of Sami students live, even though for years the Sami Parliament has proposed to extend the provisions of the Act on the Financing of Education and Culture throughout the whole country. The fragmentation of Sami settlements and shortage of Sami teachers presents a problem for education in Sami language and culture, and there is also a shortage of education material, especially in the Skolt and Inari Sami languages. Some measures have been taken to facilitate long-distance learning, but these programmes have experienced problems primarily due to a lack of funding. 71. Also important to reviving Sami language and culture is increasing the public awareness about Sami people. According to reports, the current primary school curriculum fails to adequately reflect the diversity of the Nordic countries’ populations, and textbooks for compulsory schooling have used stereotypes to describe the Sami culture. Similarly, the Special Rapporteur was informed that the university curricula for teachers do not include sufficient guidance on the Sami history and culture. The Special Rapporteur also heard many accounts of media giving a highly stereotypical image of the Sami, which contributes to the deterioration of the public image of the Sami people and also leads to a general lack of interest in the Sami by the society at large. V. Conclusions and recommendations A. General legal and policy framework 72. Overall, Norway, Sweden and Finland each pay a relatively high level of attention to indigenous issues, in comparison to other countries. In many respects, the plans and programmes related to the Sami people in the Nordic countries set important examples for securing the rights of indigenous peoples. However, more remains to be done to ensure that the Sami people can pursue their self-determination 19