The Right to Education

The Right to Education A Global Perspective Education is the closely powerful weapon which you nookie mathematical function to change the world. Nelson Mandela This saying of Nelson Mandela reveals a lot about the vastness of checking as a mean of achieving the changes we want to see in the world. Realizing the importance of fostering is full(prenominal)ly significant for the nation and the world as a whole however, giving touch teaching method opportunities to people at bottom specific countries and around the world bear ons a challenge for the planetary society.In order to overcome, or at least ease, such challenges, the proficient to grooming has been a subject of matter of world(prenominal)istic law, as well as subject pieces. While a enormous number of countries impart been signatories and ratifiers of worldwideist expressions that protect the redden out to rearing, many countries have failed to provide the essential capacities to mark off this ari ght for various reasons. The failure to protect this right, no matter the reasons, has been quite a harsh for the most vulnerable groups of different societies hence, leaving millions of people oecumenic without the capacity to contri simplye to a break in world.As such, this story provide scratch line of all focus on the protection of this right by international law, and it will later focus on the protection of the right to command in the following countries Finland, Venezuela, India and finally Kosova. The Right to Education and the International Law The right to pedagogics, as a human right, has been highly guaranteed and protected by international law for many decades now. To begin with, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948 marked the universal recognition of the right to fostering.The Declaration guarantees the right to didactics through Article 26, which among others states that Every single has the right to grooming. Education shall be loose, at least in the elementary and funda mental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. expert and professional education shall be make generally available and higher(prenominal) education shall be equally accessible to all on the base of operations of merit . Furthermore, the right to education is protected by the gathering against contrast in Education, choose in 1960.This convention, through its 19 articles plays a high significance in the struggle of the global society to hinder the discriminations and separations in education . Later on, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of secernment against Women (CEDAW), adopted in 1979, guarantees women equal rights with men in terms of education . In addition, in 1966, the right to education was besides preserved in the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, specifically through articles 13 and 14.Both article of ICESCR make old education compulsory and free of tutelage, as well as ob lige the states to make secondary and higher education easily accessible to all . Nevertheless, the Convention on The Rights of The baby (CRC), adopted in 1989, was a significant step in the protection of children from discrimination of any form. Articles 28-32 of this convention particularly deal with discriminations make in education. Signatories of this convention recognize the right of the child to education,with a view to achieving this right more and more and on the basis of equal opportunity . As menti unrivalledd previously, besides international law, the right to education is also enshrined in many regional instruments and most of the countries constitutions, though the compliance to the international/regional/national instruments varies to a great extent from country to country. As such, there are great disparities amongst school enrollment pass judgment in different countries, and the following sections of this paper will deal with the protection/ act of the right to education in specific countries and their effects on the education activities. FinlandFinland proved to be one of the most successful countries in the education field. issueually, it was ranked as the fourth part country out of 48 countries belonging to different pay offment phases. Undoubtedly, one of the essential factors that facilitated this achievement was Finlands hard work in protect the right to education. First of all, Finland is a signatory of all of the above-mentioned international instruments, which make Finland legitimately binding to all of the above articles. Furthermore, the Constitution of Finland protects the right to education through Section 16 of Chapter 2 .The constitution makes autochthonic education free and compulsory to all children. Nevertheless, the constitution makes the state accountable for providing equal opportunities to all citizens even after finishing the compulsory education . The right to basic education in Finland is further protected by the Basic Education Act, which makes the municipalities responsible for providing education in both(prenominal) languages (Sweedish and Finnish), as well as providing free school materials, meals, and transportation to all students of pre primary and primary education.The Basic Education Act also protects the right to education of the disabled children by making them entitled to special interpretation and assist services, all for free . Furthermore, the Universities Act of Finland makes undergraduate studies free of charge for studies in Finnish and Swedish, as well as freeing from undergraduate studies tuition students of EU member countries . As mentioned previously, Finland is one of the few countries where the right to education is well protected, and cases of violations of this right are not common at all and are hard to find. VenezuelaVenezuela has ratified all the international instruments mentioned above, which center that Venezuela is obliged to comply with those articl es that regulate the right to education. Besides that, the right to education in Venezuela is also protected under the Venezuelan Constitution. Chapter VI of this constitution deals specifically with education, and Article 102 of this chapter states that Education is a human right and a fundamental social duty, it is democratic, free of charge and obligatory . Further, Article 103 guarantees equal opportunities for all students, including disabled students .In addition to the Venezuelan Constitution, the right to education in Venezuela is also protected by the Organic Law of Education, decreed on 2009. Article 3 of this law, makes education public, social, compulsory, free of charge quality, secular, comprehensive, and permanent, of social pertinence, creative, artistic, innovative, critical, multicultural, multiethnic, intercultural, and multilingual . Article 6 of the Law gives access to education to disabled students and students in the Adolescent Responsibility Penal System .Fu rthermore, Article 6 makes the state responsible for developing the mechanisms that control the right to education. However, despite the progress Venezuela made in legally defend the right to education, many challenges still remain and make the reality less desirable, one of those issues being the certification of the mental institution students. Asylum seekers deal with delays in getting certified for their studies because they have to first be recognise as refugees, a process that often takes a lot of time.Furthermore, if an asylum seeker finishes a certain level of education in his/her home country, that certification will not be recognized until the student receives Venezuelan documents. As Rodrigo de La Barra puts, such delays of certification, prohibit students to wait with their studies, hence hindering motivation and increasing drop-out rates. It is burning(prenominal) to mention that both these cases are violation of the Convention on the Rights of Children, a conventi on to which Venezuela is legally binding . IndiaContrary to Finland and Venezuela, India is not legally binding to the International Convention against difference in Education. Still, it is legally binding to the other international conventions dealing with education . The right to education in India is protected in its constitution in the Article 21A, which obliges the state to offer free/compulsory basic education to children 6-14 years old. Furthermore, Article 29. 2 prohibits the discrimination in education made to minorities, whether that is racial, religious, or caste based discrimination.Nevertheless, Article 30 gives them the right to develop their own educational institutions . A highly significant step on the improvement of protection of the right to education in India was made in year 2009, when the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act was passed. This Acts aim is guaranteeing each child of age 6-14 free and soft education, as well as defining the way s the state shall use in protecting such rights. Besides making education free and compulsory, this act also says that children cannot be left out because the admission percentage point is over, or because of the lack of documents.Furthermore, the act gives the disabled students the opportunity to participate in the mainstream education . Noticeably, the government of India has made important steps in protecting the right to education still, what lies in papers is quite different from the essential situation in India. Though the school enrollment rates have increased in India after passing the Act, the participation rates and drop-out rates are not so optimistic. Yet another concern in India is the low quality education, which is a result of poor curriculum and syllabus, wanting(predicate) pedagogy, negligent teachers and parents.Nevertheless, discrimination, though prohibited by the Act, is still prevalent in the Indian education system. It is the Act itself that leaves space f or such discrimination since it allows for school categorization as follows a) government schools b)aided private schools c)special category schools and d)non-aided private schools . By allowing the existence of such school categorization, the Act legitimizes the discrimination of the poorer children who become subjects of press down quality education, as compared to the rich students.That violations of the right to education, guaranteed by the Act, are a serious concern in India, is shown by the great number of cases of violation. gibe to Amod Kanth , 10,500 cases of violation of the act have been recorded in Delhi, within a nine-month period after the implementation of the act. Kanth states that such violations are of at least 15 kinds, like screening tests before admissions, corporal punishment, admission denial, mental harassment and others . These figures of the violations in the capital city seem quite concerning, and I believe that they clearly picture the state of the righ t to education in India. Conclusion In conclusion, education is an essential process which enhances the intellectual learning of human beings. Despite being a right in itself, it is also a tool to achieve many other rights. Therefore, ensuring an education to every child is of a high significance, not only for the child alone, but also for the well-being and the development of the society.As such, guaranteeing that every human being is prone the opportunity to be provided with such a development activity has been an important subject of many international, regional, and national instruments, among them Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Convention against favoritism in Education, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, Convention on The Rights of The Child (CRC), as well as the national constitutions of almost all countries.However, as the cases in Venezuela and India, show, t he protection of the right to education by legal instruments is not sufficient unless its implementation in the real life is ensured. Problems related to the application of this right arise every day, leaving millions of children worldwide, including highly developed countries, without even basic education hence, without the potential to contribute to the improvement of the global society.Therefore, it is crucial that we, as individuals, start contributing to the gradually easing of the obstacles preventing the world from bonny a better place for everyone, either by making better laws or by implementing those laws better.