By Wendy Anders

Costa Rica’s Ombudsman’s Office (Defensoría de los Habitantes) exhorted the government yesterday to continue strengthening indigenous education in order to reduce the gap between them and other students.

The country’s current over 14,000 students enrolled in indigenous educational programs. Indigenous groups continue to face a gap in the quality and access to education in Costa Rica, the office said in a press statement yesterday.

The United Nations established August 9 as International World Indigenous Peoples’ Day and in their charter upholds that “Indigenous peoples have the right to establish and control their educational systems and institutions providing education in their own languages, in a manner appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning.”

In 2009 the Indigenous Education Program was created by the Costa Rican Education Ministry to ensure the country’s indigenous population access to education and to preserve the country’s native languages. The program was reformed in 2013, stated the ombudsman’s office, who pointed out that the government is obligated to continue strengthening this program so that indigenous people can fully exercise of their rights.

The United Nations on their website states that, “…the right to education has not been fully realized for most indigenous peoples, and a critical education gap exists between indigenous peoples and the general population.”

The Ombudsman’s Office said the Education Ministry needs to further integrate the indigenous program into their structure through the Department of Intercultural Education, the National Indigenous Education Council, and by designating local indigenous education committees and indigenous education supervisores.

The country’s indigenous areas also require specific literacy programs for the adult indigenous population, said the office, and improvements in infrastructure need to be undertaken.

Likewise, the Education Ministry should also act quickly to thoroughly investigate discrimination claims made by indigenous. For example, a group of Bruram parents in the Salitre, Puriscal area filed a claim regarding alleged discrimination by a Bribri indigenous teacher and have waited an excessively long time for a response, continued the ombudsman’s office.

Costa Rica’s indigenous population in the last census in 2011 was estimated at 104,143 making up 2.4 percent of the country’s population. Of these, 35 percent live within one of the country’s 24 established indigenous territories.