Weapon of education: a global context

GAYATRI DASS

OFTEN litigated in the courts with issues ranging from the right to wear religious headscarves in educational institutions (Leyla Sahin v Turkey, App No 44774/98) to challenges to disciplinary measures such as suspension taken by educational institutions (CP v the United Kingdom App No 300/11), one principle remains clear: the right to education is a fundamental human right.

This right has been resoundingly set out in numerous international instruments in various languages. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides at Article 26(1) that “Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.”

The European Convention on Human Rights states at Article 2, Right to education, “No person shall be denied the right to education. In the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.”

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child sets out at Article 28, “States parties recognise the right of the child to education, and with a view to achieving this right progressively and on the basis of equal opportunity…” (and at Article 29) “States parties agree that the education of the child shall be directed to…the development of the child’s personality, talents and mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential.”

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities states at Article 24, “States parties recognise the right of persons with disabilities to education.” The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights at Article 13 provides that “the States parties to the present covenant recognise the right of everyone to education” while Article 5 of the Convention against Discrimination in Education states that “the States parties to this convention agree that...education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.”

The European Court of Human Rights, also known as the Strasbourg Court, has taken a broad view of what constitutes education, noting in Campbell and Cosans v United Kingdom (1982) 4 EHRR 293 at paras 33 that “…[t]he education of children is the whole process whereby, in any society, adults endeavour to transmit their beliefs, culture and other values to the young, whereas teaching or instruction refers in particular to the transmission of knowledge and to intellectual development…[and] the process whereby a school seeks to achieve the object for which it was established, including the development and moulding of the character and mental powers of its pupils.”

At times we may have an inclination to take for granted educational opportunities such as the availability of comfortable virtual learning spaces, subsidised tuition and textbooks and access to educational resources. However, the experience of war-torn countries is a sobering experience through the lens of thousands of displaced children.

According to the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), more than 75,000 children are fleeing Ukraine every day since the escalation began on February 24, and every single minute, 55 children have fled their country (UNICEF spokesperson James Elder).

Attorney and chairman of the Caribbean Community Against Sex Crimes, Jonathan Bhagan, has weighed in on educational displacement, positing that “we have seen students from different parts of Africa and India and different parts of the world being [forced] out of Ukraine by the war, who faced serious difficulties exiting the country…there were some displays of racism against non-Ukrainian students at the Polish border…some of these students would have taken out loans and have debts… further their future is riding on them becoming a professional in their field so educational displacement is a very serious threat to human development and their individual welfare, hopes and dreams.”

Bhagan further drew a link to educational displacement and the risk of human trafficking, stating, “Some of these students received the opportunity to transfer into other universities across Europe but not all of them were fortunate. In situations like a war zone when people may be out of money or desperate, women are at a particularly higher risk of encountering human trafficking and labour trafficking as over 70 per cent of victims of sex trafficking are women. Attention should be paid to this serious issue of displacement and prior to studying in any country, students may need to assess the risk of military intervention.”

The internationally reported forced displacement of the Rohingya people that occurred (and continues to occur) in Myanmar (formerly Burma) resulted in the mass displacement of over 900,000 people. The Rohingya are a Muslim ethnic minority group who have lived for centuries in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR).

Despite living in Myanmar for generations, the Rohingya currently are not recognised as an official ethnic group and have been denied citizenship since 1982, making them the world’s largest stateless population (adapted from UNHCR). The lack of access to education, the denial of enrolment in schools to Rohingya children and the low prospect of formal, recognised, quality education to these refugees have been ever pervading issues for refugees who have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh.

As a result humanitarian groups have worked to establish temporary learning centres. However, these centres have been criticised for lacking a formal curriculum, basic educational resources and having little progression of knowledge and skills (“Are We Not Human?”: Denial of Education for Rohingya Refugee Children in Bangladesh, Human Rights Watch Report, 2019).

A fundamental right, the right to education that one can myopically overlook, is a basic human right that many have been deprived of in war-torn countries and populations affected by attempted annihilation. The age of the pandemic has unfortunately highlighted even deeper educational disparities between the rich and the poor. However, we are a resilient people. Let us hope our resilience shines through the classrooms and pushes our educators, students and policymakers through the educational hurdles they may encounter on their journey to empowerment.

Gayatri Dass is an attorney and director at a youth NGO