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| Friday, 26 December 2003 |
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The 'Right' to Education by Dr. Tara de Mel The recent attention grabbing headline of the Daily News (Daily News - 13 December 2003) highlighted that 60,000 children of Sri Lanka are not enrolled in school. The majority of this group are from the North-East, the conflict-ridden part of the country.
This news item made me recall the recent seminar held on International Human Rights Day, where the importance of introducing Human Rights Education into the school curriculum was stressed by both keynote speakers, i.e. The Minister for Human Resources Development, Education and Cultural Affairs and the former supreme court judge, Mark Fernando. On that day, in my address, I emphasized the importance of recognizing the right to Education (primary, secondary and tertiary) to all children. The point made in the Daily News lead story, was indeed my point of concern on International Human Rights Day i.e. that ensuring the right to accessing and completing a quality education, was the primary obligation of the state. Many of us have been privy to a variety of National and International goals, strategies and frameworks, that have been developed over the years to address, precisely this concern. A few of us have been party to the development of National Agendas that have been formulated, with the objective of ensuring the preservation of one's right to quality education. Successive Governments, in this country, together with International Development Partners (better known as the Donor Community) have fought hard to realize this elusive dream. There have been 'upsides' and 'downsides' in this endeavour. But the grim reality, is that we have not succeeded in all our efforts. First, Let us look at the context in which many of us in the developing world practice Universal Basic Education. I am referring to the provision of quality education to a child in the first 5 years of schooling. This is in addition to the 2-3 years of early childhood care and education he/she is entitled to. Although, we have been privileged to be the role model for South Asia indeed the model nation for the developing world with our handsome figures for literacy and primary school enrolment - can we confidently and truthfully say that we have achieved Quality? When we address the issue of quality, it must be very clear that this goes beyond the bricks and mortar of school buildings. It goes right into the quality of the teacher, the content of the curriculum and the practical dimensions of teaching aids. Undoubtedly it is a basic right of teachers to be able to access quality training and re-training in the subjects of their domain. It is also their right to have opportunities for open and distance learning, accessing web-based teaching through web-tutorials and even further teacher education through 'virtual' or 'real' universities. An essential component of defining our parameters of basic education is not to just limit it to the formal sector. The reality of addressing the educational needs of both rich and poor, urban and rural, handicapped and normal, girls and boys - has to be looked at, as a primary obligation. It really is a question of bringing Education to the people. Not just taking people to Education. This is where the stretching of ones imagination and innovative skills, must be at the highest. This is the single biggest challenge in our primary Education sector. And enabling the achievements of rights of all such individuals would indeed fulfil the requirements of the first building blocks of socio-economic development. Then we have the compelling demands placed on us, in enabling the 'right' to accessing and completing secondary and post-secondary/tertiary education. Some readers may remember that Article 26, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: "Every person has a right to education" and that, "Every person must have equal access to higher education as a function of their respective merits". The right is abundantly clear. The debate concerns its implementation. We all know of Sri Lanka's dismal performance in this area of education. Not only do we deprive the large majority of senior school leavers, of formalized/institutionalized tertiary education every year - but more importantly out of those school leavers who qualify to enter university we offer placements to only about 15 percent. We are more than aware, that while we enrol just about 2 percent of our 18 year olds into university, South Asia on average enrols 8 percent, Malaysia 12 percent, Thailand 19 percent and Singapore 32 percent. The challenges of providing comprehensive access to University Education to all our qualified 18 year olds, are diverse and complex. Depriving talented and bright students of such a fundamental human rights is tragic. We have dearly paid, over the years, with the consequences of our myopic and somewhat self-destructive policies of not expanding our tertiary education opportunities - both in and out of the state sector. By this we have also sacrificed value addition to individuals, to our economy and to our community at large. Providing the right to quality education to all, in those relevant age groups, makes way for the construction of stable democratic societies. While we have enshrined in our Constitution the 'right' of citizens to free and compulsory education, and while we have gone further and introduced legislation to ensure that compulsory education becomes a reality for all (i.e. Compulsory Education Act 1998), yet, we are still far away from achieving our goal. How then can we implement and sustain our well polished and well articulated Education policies? |
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If these statistics are to be believed, not only is this an alarming
situation, but it is also a strong wake-up call to the authorities that be
and to all of us who care about the subject of Education.
