President James Michel met with the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Education, Mr. Kishore Singh, this morning at State House. He was accompanied by Mr. Stee Asbjornsen, Associate Human Rights Officer in Geneva.  Mr. Singh is in Seychelles on an official visit after a Standing Invitation was extended to the Special Procedures Mechanism of the Human Rights Council.

Mr. Michel welcomed Mr. Singh on his first visit to Seychelles and expressed his gratitude to the United Nations for responding to Seychelles’ request to evaluate and report on the human right to education in the country.  He further reaffirmed his full commitment to the improvement of education in order to empower the youth and ensure their development.

"Your report will not only help us to make the world understand better what we have done to overcome our challenges, what we have achieved and what we can share with other countries but it will also help us to identify our weaknesses and how we can do better in the future to improve our system,” said President Michel.

During the meeting, Mr. Singh briefed the President on his meetings with the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as his findings on the situation of education in Seychelles, which will be presented in a report to the Human Rights Council in June of 2014.

Mr. Singh said the United Nations looks forward to continuous cooperation and dialogue with a view to overcoming the obstacles and improving the education system in Seychelles so that it can be an example for other countries.

“There’s a great concern to look in the question of quality of education, the teachers, their status and how to improve. But also there are great initiatives like the national action plan for human diversification as well as the medium term strategy for education and its sustainable development in all its dimensions.  And all these things are extremely important in the context of current discussions on the post 2015 development agenda and the role of education,” said Mr. Singh in an interview with the local press.

Present during the State House meeting were also the President's Diplomatic Adviser, Ambassador Callixte D'Offay and the Principal Secretary for Education, Mrs. Merida Delcy.

Editor's Note:
Seychelles presented its National Report under the Universal Periodic Review to the Human Rights Council in September 2011. One of the recommendations of the UPR Working Group was that Seychelles extend a standing invitation to all thematic Special Procedures of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.