Human Rights Discourses
Education is a human right that should be guaranteed to all (United Nations - such as UNESCO and UNICEF)
Every human being, including every child, is entitled to decent education, even when one cannot be sure that this education will pay off in human capital terms.
‘Education should prepare learners for parenthood and political participation, it should enhance social cohesion and, more than anything, it should teach the young that all human beings – themselves included – have rights’.
Rights are always rights to something.
Education is not seen simply as ‘a good thing’ to be pursued if and when there are some funds available, but rather as the right of every child, implying that the government needs to mobilize the resources needed to offer a quality education.
Sees human beings as the ultimate ends of moral and political concerns. People whose economic productivity is unlikely to benefit much from education, such as mentally disabled children, are nevertheless equally entitled to education as people who are expected to have a high economic return on education.
Often sounds overtly rhetorical. Some governments of developing countries have legally granted every child a right to education, but still millions of the children in their countries have no education at all, or might be officially enrolled but are not present in schools, or are present in schools where there are no teachers.
The risk of reducing rights to legal rights only - can be understood as moral rights or as legal rights. Can co-exist and be complimentary. Human rights are whatever governments agree them to be - This is only true of legal human rights, not of moral human rights. In the political discourse on the right to education, it is not always clear whether one is talking about moral or legal human rights. Has important consequences regarding whom might be called upon to contribute to the effective realization of the right to education. If it is agreed that the right to education is not only a legal but also a moral right, then everyone who is in a position to help realize this right should see it as her moral obligation to contribute.
Own legal and moral traditions.
Once the government agrees that every child should have the right to be educated, it might see its task as being precisely executing this agreement, and nothing more.
If schools are available and accessible, and teachers are well-trained and well-paid, and teaching material is provided and a good curriculum and pedagogy is developed, it still does not guarantee that all children will go to school and learn. Sometimes, it will be necessary that the government goes beyond its duties in terms of the rightsbased policies, to undertake action to ensure that every child can fully and equally enjoy her right to education.
Virtually exclusively government-focused - in some countries the governments are part of the problem, rather than part of the solution. A right that governments owe to their citizens, or that governments in rich societies owe (even if only to a limited extent) to the citizens of poor countries.
-