When I read the first week assignment from our course’s wiki I thought there was a very obvious question: I have ever been sure that the right to education is a fundamental basic human right!
Of course my belief is affected by my local culture: here in Italy we have a strong public schooling system and the mandatory primary instruction is absolutely consolidated, although, unfortunately, not entirely free..
However, if possible, the readings have enforced my opinion: I could not believe that in an advanced nation like the USA the right to education is NOT constitutionally guaranteed!
I think, in brief, that there is no real freedom without education. This statement is not (only) related to local political conditions like Brazil (no vote right for illitterate…). In “Removing obstacles…” (pag. 8 ), Tomasevski stresses the reasons for education, including access to good jobs and higher level of salaries. But I want to add one more reason: people need education to be free. Free to understand, free to choose, free to change, free to decide of their life.
So, I think that a state should make great efforts to make their citizens free, guaranteeing to them the higher education level.
Now, if the first question was “if people need to be educated”, the second one is related to how to educate people. If the first question was very easy to answer, this one is tremendously difficult! It involves a number of issues, to which we are likely to give answers too much conditioned by our cultural background. Examples from Tomasevski are very illuminating: is it “traditional school” the right way to educate everyone, everywhere?
We must also be aware of terms: education and instruction are not synonymous…
But what education is needed? Schooling or alternate ways? Mandatory or not? I would add: publicly-funded or not?
My personal opinion is that, at least for primary level, “traditional” schools are yet an invaluable occasion of experiences and knowledge sharing for children. We can dispute about organization, using or not using technologies, and so on, but classes are so important for the growing of our young citizens! I am also a strong supporter of the publicly-funded schooling system.
It strikes me that Greg talks about the right to refuse education. It is an interesting point of view: a sign of civilty about the balance between public and private rights. However, I am not able to completely agree: are we sure that Lesotho herders should continue to be herders? What if they had the opportunity to be more educated? I guess that the cause-effect chain is not always so clear…
I see another issue in the background: is education to be considered a new way of colonization? This is a serious problem. We can start from the problem of language, that I consider very important. Stian raised this question, too. For instance, the level of knowledge of English, in Italy, is becoming nowadays a strong discriminant for access to better jobs and opportunities: this course is an example…. 
This is a problem enhanced by the Internet: most of the valuable educational resources available on the Web are in English. On the other hand, as stated by Stian, it is crucial to preserve contextualization of educational content and practices.
Of course, there are many other obstacles and issues. Economics is perhaps the main one: the education system is expensive, both for governments and families. Poverty is a big obstacle, but illiteracy generate new poverty.. so we have to find a way to break this vicious circle. Anyway, I think that public funds should be allocated rather to schools than to military!
It’s worth noting that economics may play a role also in the opposite sense. For example, in some of the richest regions in Italy (the so-called “north-east disctrict”) there are so many occasion of work (even if often unqualified) that the teenagers (and their families) are not encouraged to finish high school: they do not consider higher education relevant.
But the Tomasevski’s papers are an endless source of situations to which we rarely think: removing of racial and gender discrimination, avoiding old and new colonialist approaches, respect of the contextualized nature of education, risks of education as a way for indoctrination.
There are further issues regarding adults and lifelong learning. It is a topic just mentioned by Tomasevski but it will be more and more important in the future.
A final annotation: maybe if the World Bank and the IMF were more committed (Removing obstacles…, pag. 9) to the right of education, many things can change…
in English
Thank you for the very thoughtful analysis.
Regarding “Are we sure that Lesotho herders should continue to be herders?”… perhaps it should their choice not ours?
Of course, that implies them having a voice in the decision, which may imply some basic level of information if not education.
Regarding language, I couldn’t agree with you more. I taught in Africa at an “English only school.” The enforcement of English only was one of the only things I didn’t like there, because I thought it devalued students’ native culture. (The other argument was that all secondary education there is in English, so they did need to learn English to advance, but I think that is bad government policy.) We also taught a British curriculum, but one of the things i did as a teacher was to drop some British history and substitute in African history. That was a lot of fun.
One of the great opportunities in open education (and with the Internet) is to start making the Internet more multi-lingual. Wikipedia is a good example of how this can be done. It is wonderful that there are so many people willing to do this.
Yes, there are several versions of Wikipedia, and it is a good thing. Of course I currently write my posts in Italian, my native language.
But, if I want to participate in an international initiative, formal or informal (like this course) or simply I want the chance to discuss at a broader level, I need to write in English.. This is a fact, for now
Many thanks for your comment!
Great post
I agree with you
Keep it up man
–Jaycn
Your post is very clear about not only Italy’s educational problems but also the brazilian educational model, and as far as I know, a huge amount of educational models in several countries.
In Brazil, public education is terrible. Many schools tend to be only a children repository, where they stand alone from the streets for some daily hours. There is not, generally, a master plan about educational needs, realities, even cultural varieties or purposes. However, despite all the richness of USA, their public educational model is not very far from this.
It is a fact that a significant guilty for poverty in Brazil, more than economic unequality, is the educational unequality. Here in the state of São Paulo, solds are higher, illiterate rates are the lowest of the country, economical equality is the best (or less worse) and this is due education.
Educational situation in our country is so serious that changes start to be taken. One of them is the trial to impose a “meritocracy model” of financing projects, or, those schools that present the highest levels of educational success (evaluated by not only exams but also program, teachers absenses rates, and some other aspects) will gain more money for their projects. In the state of São Paulo, and many cities of them (we have federal schools, state schools and municipal ones), theachers that don’t be absent gain a sold bonus.
At least, there is a conscience about the importance of the public education, in the contrary way that USA or Chile.
Other aspect in your post is about the cultural importance of education, particularly about language. I tend to believe that other languages are essential to all individuals that don’t want to “loose anything”. I also believe that when you learn other languages, you are able to understand yours, because you have more basis to understand grammar, lexicon, composing, etc.
There is also the highly significant aspect: global culture. I tend to believe that american culture is much poorer that many others, due to the fact that they don’t speak other languages, which tend to block many possibilities and close themselves into a trap of misunderstanding and maybe “dumpness”. They don’t know in fact what happen in the world, only what is related to american culture.
I lived in Spain, and in a certain way the same happens there. Spanish people is very proud of their language, and any problem with that, but they refuse to learn english or any other languages. I don’t know in Italy how it happens, but in Spain even the movies, in the cinemas, are lip synched!!. In Europe situation is not so severe cause the contact between people of several countries amenize in a certain way the problems of linguistic isolation.
In Brazil, american culture is very strong, but it didn’t represent any loss, by the contrary, cultural richness was improved by this process. And in the academical field, brazilian researchers tend to succeed not only in the USA but in several countries, and one of the keys for that is their contact to English, Spanish and other idioms, by films, food, inmigration, etc.
I spent 6 months in South Africa in 2005.
First had I witnessed what happens when you deny education as a human right to people.
During apartheid blacks were given poor education or none at all. Now they have 2 generations trying to live in a modern country that have no education. No education always equals crime. In major cities in South Africa, especially Joberg you will see electric fences ont he majority of nice houses, when it is dark outside you are allowed to run red lights due to the mass car jackings.
You really shot your country in the foot if you do not provide education for your people. Eventually civil unrest and despair reaches the point where the government gets toppled. So it’s not like the saving money on not spending it on education for your people is going to be a long term investment
I agree that there is no freedom to people who can’t get an opportunity to educate. I’m suprised, in America it should be wriiten in their constitution, the right to get education. In my country, during wars, the education wasn’t allowed - and that was a real horror for people.
Theo
It is a real problem in some countries. Fortunately in Northern Ireland, where I live, there is a reall great schooling system which hopefully in the years to come will be fully integrated (in terms of Protestants and Catholics) so we can teach our young ones right from wrong.
The Lord knows we need it!
Education is certainly a luxury here in the US that is clearly not appreciated. Agreed that it “should” be a right and that the highest quality should be made available. But how is that ever going to happen when people (again, here in the US, maybe elsewhere too?) don’t appreciate what they have and demonstrate their gratitude by becoming the best educated individual they can? Not sure the answer, or if it is even answerable!
Hi there,
Very thought provoking post there thanks. Re: the lesotho herders, of course it should be their choice to educate themselves and if they choose to refuse education then that is up to them, but they should have access to the possibilities that eductaion could bring them. That way if they choose not to accept education at least we can say they\’ve done so from an informed point of view.
Re: whether education is a basic human right, I think the problem stems from parents. Parents have to be in a position to be able to care for their children. Unfortunately in some places in the world today the parents generation have not been put into a position where they can teach their children the fundamentals - ie reading and writing - where they can go on and learn more according to how they feel they need to.
Well, thats what I think