A/HRC/18/35/Add.6 indigenous intellectual property rights, and will follow with interest the development of this legislative initiative.25 47. The Special Rapporteur heard concerns that the current primary school curriculum fails to adequately convey the history of Kanak culture and experience of colonization, the secondary school curriculum, which is adopted from the French system, does not treat this material at all, and teacher-training curricula do not include sufficient instruction on Kanak history and culture. The Special Rapporteur understands that outside of the education setting, society at large has very limited exposure to information about Kanak culture. He heard anecdotal accounts of news media portraying political disputes in ways that cast the Kanak in a negative light and contribute to the deterioration of the public image of the Kanak people. The Special Rapporteur encourages collaboration to identify opportunities to share Kanak culture more broadly – for example, through innovative education curricula, radio programmes, knowledge-sharing programmes around Kanak traditional festivals, or other means. 48. The Special Rapporteur acknowledges the hard work that has led to the adoption of the anthem, motto, and bank note design for New Caledonia, and encourages all parties to continue working collaboratively to reach consensus on the remaining symbols, such as the national flag and country name. F. Persistent social and economic disparities 49. The Kanak people are experiencing poor levels of educational attainment, employment, health, over-representation in Government-subsidized housing, urban poverty, exposure to dangerously high levels of pollution of their lands and waters. A disproportionate number of Kanak people live in poverty, despite the fact that many continue to benefit from subsistence practices, and at least 90 per cent of the detainees in New Caledonia prison are Kanak, half of them below the age of 25 .26 50. Quantifying and responding to the socio-economic disparities is complicated by the constraints under French law against collection and publication of ethnically disaggregated data.27 These constraints, and the policy of formal equality underlying them, mask ongoing discrimination as well as uneven impacts of facially neutral legislation and programmes. In the absence of reliable comparative data on the education, health, employment, poverty and other socio-economic indicators of the different population groups in New Caledonia, it is difficult for government agencies to design and implement policies that target actual needs or to remedy actual disparities. In this policy context of formal equality but uneven conditions, the Kanak people struggle to protect and promote their distinctive identity while advocating for their socio-economic development. 51. Historically, economic development, wealth, and population have been concentrated in South Province, particularly in Greater Nouméa. The Nouméa Accord promotes the rebalancing of resources to encourage private-sector investment in North and Loyalty Islands provinces, and to favor these provinces in the redistribution of national tax revenue 25 Loi du pays (Projet) relative au statut coutumier des savoirs traditionnels et à la protection des droits intellectuels autochtones, Nouméa, 9 September 2010 (provided to the Special Rapporteur, February 2011). 26 Conseil national pour les droits des peuples autochtones en Kanaky-Nouvelle-Calédonie, Report on the Situation of Indigenous People of Kanaky. 27 However, some data on social and economic indicators is provided for each Kanak tribe by the Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies of New Caledonia (Institute de la statistique et des etudes economiques). See http://www.isee.nc/portraitribu/tribus.html. 15