Education as a Human Right

Principles for a Universal Entitlement to Learning

Tristan McCowan

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781441150592
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Theory & Practice

Education is widely recognized as a fundamental human right, yet the nature of the right remains unclear. Is it an entitlement to go to school, to acquire particular forms of knowledge or develop particular skills or attributes? And why exactly is education so important that we might defend all people's right to it? This book provides a much-needed exploration of this key contemporary issue. Highlighting limitations in the approaches of both the Education for All initiative and existing international law, the book presents a radical new vision of how the right can be understood. As well as basic education, there are discussions of higher and lifelong education, of human rights education, and of the intersection of rights-based approaches with others such Amartya Sen's 'capabilities'. The work serves as a stirring defense of the universal right to education against instrumental conceptions of learning, the inactivity of national governments and the abrogation of responsibility of the international community.

1

Introduction: The Global Education Landscape

Few places in the world are now untouched by the institution of school. And yet many fail to benefit from it. We are living in an era of dramatic expansion of access to education, but disparities between social groups remain as stark as ever, and even now millions never sit facing a blackboard, let alone engage in meaningful learning. The tremendous faith in education, and its central place in the rhetoric of governments and agencies, is accompanied by negligence and narrow-minded thinking, and for most people the extraordinary possibilities of learning are not fulfilled. But does that matter? Should all children – and perhaps all adults – in fact be entitled to education and learning?

This book explores the principles that might underpin a universal right of this kind. It defends the idea that all people are indeed entitled to education, but goes on to address a further question: that of the forms of education that might correspond to the right. Education today is universally identified with school (or university). The diverse forms of learning that characterized the premodern world – whether through apprenticeships, the family, religious rites or coming-of-age initiations – all still exist, but cluster around the edges of the Leviathan of the school system. In the eyes of governments, development agencies and rights instruments, expansion of educational access means the expansion of school systems. But are we justified in seeing the right to education as being a right to schooling? And if not school, then what?

Take these three episodes (fictional but not distant from the reality of many around the world):

Reconnaissance planes flying over the Brazilian Amazon recently sighted a previously unknown indigenous group deep in the interior of Amazonas state. With time, contact was made, initially with rubber tappers, gold prospectors and illegal loggers, and then with the official state agency for indigenous affairs, which provided basic services to the community. As part of these services, a small primary school was constructed, staffed by teachers from the capital city of the state, Manaus. The agency officials strongly encouraged parents to send their children to the new school. One Monday morning, a group of 14 children aged between 6 and 11 sit down for the first time on wooden benches and face a whiteboard; an unknown adult addresses them in an unknown language, setting out the objectives of today’s maths lesson.

Uttar Pradesh, India. A boy arrives at school having made the long walk from the edge of the village. He has an empty stomach but knows that at midday he’ll be given a bowl of rice and dal together with the other children. He sits at the back of the class – he is a Dalit so is wary of occupying the front rows. He chants the mysterious words after the teacher, 70 or 80 voices together. As he looks out of the window he thinks about all the things he could be in life, an engineer, a doctor – if he studied hard of course. Tomorrow he would have to help his parents in the fields, but the day after, or maybe the day after that, he’d be back in school again, as long as it didn’t rain.

Grace Loy stood up from her computer and looked down at the busy Dar-es-Salaam Street. She recalled the red earth track outside her aunt’s rickety home where she had grown up. She had lost both her parents as a baby – later she learned they had fallen prey to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. She thought of the stories her aunt would tell her, her words of inspiration, her patient hands guiding her as she learned to write, to read, to tell her own stories. And then one day she made the long trip to the city to go to university, and here she was. She looked across the row of novels and short stories on her shelf, with the name Grace Loy in bold letters. She pulled one out; there above the title was a sticker, ‘Winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction’.

Three episodes, three faces of education. In the first we see the dilemma of indigenous communities caught between, on the one hand, an increasingly unviable isolation, prey to exploitation at the hands of corporations and the destruction of the local environment, and, on the other hand, a school system that might equip them to defend their interests but at the expense of their knowledge systems, language and cultural integrity. In the second, we see the fragility of educational access for the poor, vulnerable to competing responsibilities of paid work, household chores and care of siblings, as well as direct discrimination and precarious quality in the school. In the third, the extraordinary potential of education to transform lives (as long as it is based on meaningful learning in relationships of care and inspiration) accompanied, as all transformations are, by loss as well as gain.

These vignettes point us at the same time to the great possibilities of education, the current realities of educational injustice, but also the need to think about which education we might want. The episodes are all located in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), sometimes (problematically) described as ‘developing countries’, or the Global South. The book as a whole, in fact, will concentrate mainly on these regions of Asia, Africa and Latin America. The reason for this focus is not that infringements of the right to education cannot be found in the high-income countries of Europe, North America, Australasia and East Asia – there are many of course, though they may manifest themselves in more subtle ways. The focus on LMICs stems from the book’s engagement with the right to education in relation to international development, and specifically to the Education for All (EFA) initiative. Debates around the right to education in the very diverse countries considered to be ‘developing’ are particularly critical on account of the severe lack of resources evident in many systems, leading to limited coverage and issues of quality, as well as complexities regarding the relevance, cultural sensitivity and political orientation of curricula in postcolonial contexts.

The EFA initiative launched in Jomtien, Thailand in 1990, has given significant impetus to the undertaking of ensuring global educational justice. In part, it is a fundraising movement, but the challenge of getting all children into school is far more than a question of money. Obstacles to access to school and meaningful learning are multiple and complex. Yet in the urgency of the task, the question of what school is for has become largely forgotten. As emphasized by Yates (2012), EFA is too much about techne (the methods or activities) and not enough about telos (the purposes or ends). This book represents a pause in the bustle of activity, a standing back to observe the shape of a wall being constructed, a moment of reflection. But this is far from an indulgence, an intellectual curiosity. Ultimately, it is not any education that will do.

The majority of literature on EFA addresses difficulties in implementation – the task of establishing universal education systems of high quality. This book instead focuses to a large extent on the vision rather than the strategy of EFA: that is to say, the principles underpinning the goal. The assumption that all actors are aiming for a similar end-point is a dangerous one, and greater clarity on the normative basis of EFA is needed before coordinating efforts to achieve it.

The emergence of Education for All

The World Conference on EFA aimed to reignite the faltering progress of educational development, which had suffered from the 1970s onwards through changing priorities, economic decline and structural adjustment programmes. In the decades following the Second World War, education systems in many countries had expanded rapidly, spurred on by the new-found belief that their economies would benefit as a result. The large number of countries that gained their independence in this period looked to education systems as a means to nation-building, as European countries had in the previous century. However, after the initial expansion had satisfied the educational needs of the elites, and the promise of mass education in delivering rapid economic growth in many cases had not borne fruit, the initial advances could not be sustained.

At Jomtien, there gathered together representatives of 155 governments, 33 intergovernmental organizations and 125 non-governmental organizations (NGOs), convened by the four main agencies of United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). According to Little (2008: 53), regardless of any initiatives that followed, the conference was highly significant simply through bringing all these groups together: ‘it heralded the beginnings of a global compact/coalition of ideas about and finance for education that would far outweigh anything that had gone before’. The World Declaration on Education for All and Framework for Action to Meet Basic Learning Needs (or Jomtien Declaration), which emerged from the conference, has served as a founding document for EFA.

The Jomtien Declaration puts forward a statement of the importance of education, a vision of what education should involve and a strategy of international cooperation to achieve it. In essence, the Declaration asserts the necessity for all people around the world to have their ‘basic learning needs’ met, focusing on universal access to primary school, but also youth and adult education, attention to quality and to inequities in relation to gender and ability. It also outlines the political conditions necessary for achieving EFA, the need to mobilize resources and have broad cooperation intra-nationally and internationally. The emphasis on universal primary education – along with World Bank research (e.g. Psacharopoulos 1985) that showed greater economic returns to primary in comparison to secondary and higher – led to increasing prioritization of this level (Heyneman 2003). The consensus of the Jomtien Declaration and subsequent EFA initiative contrasted with the smorgasbord that had characterized educational aid previously, according to Mundy (2006: 27):

From high-level manpower planning to vocational education, non-formal education, adult literacy, higher education and back again, a vague and expansive menu of what was ‘needed’ was reported or endorsed in a succession of international conferences and publications.

Certainly, some momentum was gained from the Jomtien conference, yet the progress fell far short of the optimistic targets set. A follow-up event, the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal, took place ten years later in 2000, on the date on which the goals of Jomtien were supposed to have been met (but had not). The Dakar Framework for Action reaffirmed much of the previous vision, but outlined more concrete targets and mechanisms of implementation. The six proposed goals were as follows:

1.expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood care and education, especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children;

2.ensuring that by 2015 all children, particularly girls, children in difficult circumstances and those belonging to ethnic minorities, have access to and complete, free and compulsory primary education of good quality;

3.ensuring that the learning needs of all young people and adults are met through equitable access to appropriate learning and life-skills programmes;

4.achieving a 50 per cent improvement in levels of adult literacy by 2015, especially for women, and equitable access to basic and continuing education for all adults;

5.eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005, and achieving gender equality in education by 2015, with a focus on ensuring girls’ full and equal access to and achievement in basic education of good quality;

6.improving all aspects of the quality of education and ensuring excellence of all so that recognized and measurable learning outcomes are achieved by all, especially in literacy, numeracy and essential life skills.

In contrast to these six, a narrower vision of just two goals was put forward in the other influential goal-setting task of the year 2000, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These were: universal primary education (although importantly stipulating completion rather than just initial enrolment); and eliminating gender disparities in both primary and secondary levels. It is perhaps understandable that with only eight goals relating to all aspects of human existence, a vision of education of satisfactory breadth could not be ensured. Yet the focus on primary education here reaffirmed the existing tendency to the detriment of other levels and forms of education.

According to Mundy (2006), even more than the 1990s, it is the period since 2000 in which the most significant shift in international support for education can be observed, moving from the fragmented and incoherent array of bilateral programmes that had existed since the Second World War, to a much more coordinated effort – involving a rapprochement between the market-friendly Bretton Woods organizations with the basic needs and poverty focused UN agencies and INGOs – along with significantly increased resources. Packer (2007) also emphasizes the change since 2000 in the emergence of the EFA architecture and increase in initiatives and activities, accompanied by systems of targets and monitoring.

A significant new mechanism emerging was the Fast Track Initiative (now the Global Partnership for Education), launched in 2002 by the World Bank and partners, a multilateral scheme that provides extra resources for low income countries to fund universal primary education and technical support for planning. The establishment, also in 2002, of the annual Global Monitoring Report produced by UNESCO has also provided educationists and policy-makers with comprehensive statistics and analysis on which to base initiatives. UNESCO is nominally the lead agency for EFA, but with its limited budget is overshadowed in influence by the World Bank. Other major donors are bilaterals including Department for International Development (DFID), United Nations Agency for International Development (USAID) and Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), while there are international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) such as Save the Children, Oxfam and ActionAid with significant education programmes, and advocacy groups such as the Global Campaign for Education.

The flurry of activity around international education is perhaps more surprising given the backdrop of downward pressure on aid budgets. A key reason why education has begun to take on a more central role in this context is that it has increasingly been seen as a motor for (economic) development. This instrumental framing of education – a far cry from the intellectual and cultural value and the role in mutual understanding that characterized the founding of UNESCO – will be a key point for discussion in the subsequent chapters.

EFA has a high profile in LMICs – particularly in Africa and Asia (much less so in Latin America), and has brought tangible changes in policies and practice. While the emphasis on education as a whole, and particularly on access for marginalized populations, has been welcomed by many, there have also been concerns. The support from the World Bank and major powers such as the United States and United Kingdom has inevitably raised suspicions that there is more to the initiative than selfless concern for the disadvantaged. Some have seen EFA as a concerted attempt to prime the global poor for the bottom rung of the globalized capitalist system, and prepare their hearts and minds for consumption. Even among those who do not adhere to Marxist positions, there are concerns about the top–down nature of the initiative, through which countries are rewarded with funding only if they have presented a plan consonant with donor visions of appropriate policy and planning.

The state of education worldwide

So how have two decades of EFA left the global scenario of education? At latest estimates, there are some 61 million children out of school around the world (UNESCO 2012). In many ways, this figure is only the tip of the iceberg. Carr-Hill (2012) estimates that the real number is likely to be twice this, given the undercounting of populations in particular circumstances – refugees, internally displaced peoples, nomads, those living in slums etc. – and the increased likelihood of these populations having out-of-school children. Furthermore, this figure only includes those completely out of school, and not those who have irregular attendance, who are significantly over age or who drop out soon after the start of the school year.

Access is not only a problem of lack of schools or places within schools, but also a question of demand, given economic pressures on families, responsibilities of children for household work and care of family members, and lack of value attached to formal education (sometimes with good reason). The challenge of universal primary education then is more than a financial one, although sufficient funding is a necessary precondition: the annual shortfall of funds for basic education is estimated at £11 billion for the 46 low-income countries covered (UNESCO 2010). This is a significant sum, but less than one-fifth of annual spending on arms of either the United Kingdom or France, and just 1.5 per cent of that of United States (Guardian 2012).

As might be expected, out-of-school children are not evenly distributed around the world or between different social groups. Over half of the out-of-school children are in sub-Saharan Africa – some 23 per cent of children in the region do not complete primary education – with a further 13 million in South and West Asia, representing 8 per cent of the age group (UNESCO 2012). Nigeria alone has over ten million children out of school, with Pakistan over five million, and India and Ethiopia over two million. Over 40 per cent of these out-of-school children across the world live in countries affected by conflict.

Certain groups within countries also have a higher propensity to be out of school. Girls have significantly lower rates of enrolment than boys at primary and secondary levels in many LMICs, and two- thirds of illiterate adults are women. The wealth of a family, unsurprisingly, is strongly linked to educational prospects. According to UNESCO (2011), 28 per cent of the wealthiest quintile in Cambodia have completed secondary school, while this figure falls to 0.2 per cent for the poorest quintile (based on the 23–7 age group). A number of other factors are also influential in reducing a child’s chances of access to education: belonging to a minority ethnic or linguistic group, being a nomad, having a disability, being affected directly or indirectly by HIV/AIDS, living in rural areas, among others. Furthermore, there are intersectional dynamics, for example ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series
• 1 Introduction: The Global Education Landscape
• 2 The Right to Education in International Law
• 3 Justifications for the Right to Education
• 4 A Right to What? Inputs, Outcomes and Processes
• 5 Upholding Human Rights within Education
• 6 Is there a Universal Right to Higher Education?
• 7 Contributions of the Capabilities Approach
• 8 Learning Human Rights
• 9 Principles and Implications
• References
• Index