Access to Education- The Fundamental Human Right--Part 1

 Why is the Right to Education Declared as the Fundamental Human Right?

The Image was taken from free Pexel.com.

Education as fundamental right has multiple purposes -- to address a whole of other issues in the lives of humans, to enforce those needs legally and monitor them using standards. 

The United Nations General Assembly, on 10 December 1948, made The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  According to them, the right to education is a universal human right and binding on all nations globally.  Until then, education was a privileged right of those who amassed national wealth and power and, classified themselves as socially advanced.

I have memories of the so-called lower caste people shunned to the dark corners of my village. They merely survived.  The young children and youth were not having access to schooling and education.  Things have improved now.  The present generation has access to education and has progressed through bettering their lives by earning employment.  However, compared with other social groups, they must overcome the social and economic hurdles to prove their worth to the rest of society.  

In South Africa, I have heard anecdotal stories in my MEd classrooms.  One such is a teacher who asked the learners in her classroom to draw a circle in her geometry classroom.  She hinted it was in the shape of a frying pan.  She was trying to assist the learners to connect the knowledge of a circle from their day-to-day experiences.  The learners did not get the connection because they were not using frying pans in their homes- a sophisticated utensil for them. They lived in an economically and racially deprived Black township. During apartheid, Black people lived in the backward areas designated for them.  

In 1994 South Africa gained independence.  The Constitution guarantees peoples' rights for equality is under the Bill of Rights.  Racism is outdated in all official circles, but the disparity in people's privileges is still a national issue. 

In India, the rights of a section of the population are still classified under the depriving terms Scheduled and Backwards.  

Seventy Years After the UNESCO Declaration

 It is interesting to chart the progress of the UN declaration that education is human rights made in 1948, seventy years after, in 2018.  According to UNESCO Institute of STATISTICS (UIS): 

• About 258 million children and youth are out of school.
• 155 countries legally guarantee compulsory education for nine years or more. 
• Only 99 countries legally ensure free education until 12 years.
• 8.2% of primary-school-age children do not go to school, only six in ten young people will be finishing secondary school education by 2030, and 102 million youths lack basic literacy skills. 

The statistics don't draw a rosy picture and provide insights.  

UNESCO's motivation in declaring education as the fundamental Human Right

The following gives a summary of UNESCO's motivation for making the declaration.

• The right to education is essential to exercising other human rights
• Quality education aims to ensure the development of fully rounded human beings
• It is the most fundamental tool to emancipate socially excluded children and families from poverty and the rings of multiple deprivations.
• It narrows the gender gaps between women and girls.
• There must be equality of opportunities, universal access, and enforceable and monitored quality standards for this human right to work.

So, education as a fundamental right has multiple purposes -- to address a whole of other issues deprived people face in their lives and the legal enforcement of the remedies to rectify them through monitoring using standards. 

 

Nations can, however, feel proud that steps have been taken in the right directions but not for resolving the issues satisfactorily.  Reasons are political, racial, religious, and social.  In the governments, those who got power amassed and earned a better life through education need to pull their developmental muscle to do their part in the cause.  Instead, they use all such privileges and positions to build up their personal welfare and not doing good for the common's welfare is a trend in modern democracies.

Cause a Chatter is an excellent and commendable direction in that regard.  The purpose has multiple phases, and the fundamental is awareness through information.

UNESCO has identified the hindrances standing in achieving what it purposed by declaring education as a fundamental human right.  The major ones are the social exclusion of individuals and families, unequal opportunities, lack of universal access to resources, and genderism.  All these factors can be seen as constituting a network of deprivation. 

 To summarise the factors constituting deprivation: 

• social and economic deprivation  
• lack of resources and opportunities, 
• social stigma.  
• discrimination absent rights to equality
• genderism
• casteism, racist.     

The Image was taken from free Pexel.com.

And unless one assesses how they impact the human conditions, child development, family, parents, mental health, perception, ethics, morality, and consciousness, one cannot commit fully to their causes.  

Conclusion:  

 UNESCO has declared education is a fundamental human right.

Nations have taken steps to implement them.

However, more needs to be done to address the social deprivation in education.

How severe is social deprivation in denying access to education?  This will be addressed in Part 2 of the post. 

This post is part of Blog chatter's Cause A Chatter

**