Education is a human right

TTUTA

THE right to education is enshrined in article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted in 1989, stipulates that countries shall, within their capacity to do so, make higher education accessible to all.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development which was adopted in September 2015, recognises that education is essential for the success of all 17 goals, with goal 4 focusing on inclusive and equitable quality education to promote life-long learning opportunities for all by 2030.

It has long been accepted that education offers an antidote to poverty, promising a path to a better future for millions around the world.

Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of the international community, the United Nations (UN) estimates that approximately 265 million children and adolescents do not have the opportunity to enter or complete school; 617 million children and adolescents cannot read or do basic arithmetic; less than 40 per cent of girls in sub-Saharan Africa complete school and approximately four million children and youth refugees are not enrolled in school.

These staggering figures indicate that the right to education for many is being denied and violated; a situation which must concern the global community for it represents the underachievement of potential by a large body of human beings, perpetuating poverty, inequity, and even unsustainable development.

On January 24, the world celebrated the third International Day of Education, under the theme, “Recover and Revitalise Education for the covid19 Generation.”

Few would doubt that among the sectors hardest hit by the pandemic, education has taken a huge blow, exacerbating and accentuating inequalities and inequities which already marginalises millions of children through the unequal distribution of wealth, and leadership that perpetuates personal greed.

The theme seeks to place a renewed focus on education by promoting global collaboration and solidarity to position education and life-long learning at the centre of the recovery process.

The closure of schools and other learning institutions, as well as the interruption of many literacy and life-long learning programmes has affected the lives of approximately 1.6 billion students in over 190 countries according to the UN.

The recovery process must place greater emphasis on the transformation towards more inclusive, safe, and sustainable societies, with the pandemic presenting an opportunity to push the reset button, redoubling efforts to achieve the fledgling 2030 agenda.

According to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, “We must do far more to advance Sustainable Development Goal 4, to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote life-long learning opportunities for all”.

Global leaders must urgently address inequity gaps and social deficits in the recovery formulae of the global community. Never have so many children been out of school at the same time, disrupting lives in an unprecedented manner especially for the most vulnerable and marginalised.

The UN estimates that approximately 369 million children who rely on school meals had to seek other sources for daily nutrition, which for many in already impoverished circumstances was a daunting prospect.

Indeed, the global pandemic has far-reaching consequences that may jeopardize many of the hard-won gains achieved in improving global education. Such fears must be counteracted by concerted national and global action, cognizant of the stakes in question.

Education must be seen as a human right, a public good, and a public responsibility. As such education must be placed at the centre of any national and global economic recovery initiative. Failure to do so would imperil the quest to lift millions out of poverty or achieve gender equality.

Before the pandemic, many education systems were already vulnerable and precarious, barely meeting quality targets and standards. These deficiencies have not just been highlighted but they are further compounded by the challenges of post-pandemic recovery: the digitization of education in terms of learning material and pedagogy.

In its current configuration, our own education system inadvertently perpetuates inequity gaps and marginalisation with the inevitable consequence of social dysfunction and denial of potential to large segments of our society.

The question we must now collectively ponder upon is, how do we recover and revitalise our education system for the covid19 generation to ensure the social stratification status quo is upended to promote a more fair, just, and equitable society?

The pandemic is an opportunity to break the cycle of unequal outcomes through the provision of equal quality education opportunity for all – a system that is resilient, flexible, and innovative.