The Right To Education

Abstract

Today the international community is faced with increasingly serious problems: proliferating acts of violence and conflicts; poverty and illiteracy; the gap between rich and poor; and marginalization and social exclusion in a world where one quarter of all human beings live in poverty. The right to education is an invaluable tool in the bid to eradicate poverty and to tackle these problems. How great the challenge is can be seen from the fact that some 113 million children, 60% of them girls, have no access to primary education; at least 880 million adults, including a majority of women, are illiterate.1There is a need, therefore, for “a global renewal of and re-commitment to Education for All as a bedrock of peace and all forms of development.”2 It is increasingly necessary, therefore, for education to be at the very heart of our development strategies. UNESCO is convinced that resolute action in favour of education for all, such as is now indispensable, should be carried through with greater energy and better cooperation at the national and international levels. The Organization, which was called immediately upon its inception to play a pioneering role in promoting the right to education, needs to redouble its efforts to respond to the fundamental educational needs in the world today. UNESCO’s programme, as adopted in 1952, is concerned with the measures that need to be taken so that the right to free and compulsory education, as set forth in Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is actually honoured.3 In this way, UNESCO establishes the fundamental principle of equality of opportunity for the children of the world. “It is just and it is necessary that all the children of the world should have the right to equal opportunity. […] This ideal is the motivating force which has led UNESCO to undertake a campaign for compulsory education.”4