A. Reis Monteiro
University of Lisbon – PORTUGAL
International Education Law is composed of dozens of varied instruments. Their scope may be universal or regional, their legal force may be conventional (binding, hard law) or non-conventional (non-binding, soft law), their content may be general (including all or some human rights, such as the economic, social and cultural rights), categorical (concerning the rights of a group of persons, such as children) or specific (addressing only the right to education). Its Corpus Juris (Body of Law) is the densest in the human rights field, after International Labour Law, but is overwhelmingly non-conventional (soft law).
At the universal level (United Nations), the most general and universal normative framework of the right to education is set up by the following provisions: Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), Articles 13 and 14 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966), Articles 28 and 29 of the Convention on the Right of the Child (1989).
Many other universal, conventional and non-conventional, instruments include provisions on the right to education.
Within the United Nations system, UNESCO is the specialised agency concerned with the right to education (and other cultural rights). As of 1 July 20211, its General Conference had adopted 88 instruments: 39 Conventions and Agreements, 35 Recommendations, 14 Declarations and Charters. Among them, 24 concern the right to education:
– 14 Conventions (including a Protocol and regional Conventions)
– 9 Recommendations
– 1 Charter
Education is also included in the titles of 1 Agreement, 1 Protocol and 1 Declaration.
The main Conventions on the right to education adopted by UNESCO are the following:
– Convention against Discrimination in Education, adopted in 1960. In 1962, was adopted a Protocol Instituting a Conciliation and Good Offices Commission to be responsible for seeking a settlement of any disputes which may arise between States Parties to the Convention against Discrimination in Education
– Convention on Technical and Vocational Education (1989)
– Global Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications ConcerningHigher Education (2019)
The recognition of studies, diplomas and degrees in higher education has been addressed by UNESCO since the 1970s, at regional level: Latin America and the Caribbean (1974, revised in 2019), Arab and European States bordering on the Mediterranean (1976), Arab States (1978, under revision), European Region (1979 and 1997, jointly drafted by UNESCO and the Council of Europe), African States (1981, revised in 2014), Asia and the Pacific (1983, revised in 2011).
Among the Recommendations on the right to education adopted by UNESCO, the following ones should be highlighted:
– Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers (1966)
– Recommendation concerning Education for International Understanding, Cooperation and Peace and Education relating to Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (1974, under revision)
– Recommendation concerning the Status of Higher-Education Teaching Personnel (1997)
– Recommendation concerning Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) (2015)
– Recommendation on Adult Learning and Education (2015)
An International Charter of Physical Education, Physical Activity and Sport was adopted in 2015.
Many other specific texts were adopted by regional Conferences of Ministers of Education of UNESCO Member States, by the International Conference on Education and by other international meetings gathered under its auspices or with its participation.
Education is also concerned by other UNESCO standard-setting instruments.
As the vocational element of the right to education falls into the International Labour Office (ILO) field of action, education is referred to in various of its legal instruments relating to aspects of the right to work, including the work of children, and the rights of indigenous peoples.
Provisions on the right to education are also to be found in other branches of International Law, such as International Law of Refugees, International Humanitarian Law, International Criminal Law, as well as in International Environmental Law.
At the regional level (European, American, African, and other regions), there is also a significant normative body.
Summing up: There are provisions on education/right to education in more than one hundred treaties and other diverse international legal texts. The Case Law on the right to education worldwide is also impressive.
The Convention against Discrimination in Education remains, in spite of its age, the principal international instrument of the International Education Law, but the normative, jurisprudential and doctrinal evolution of International Education Law has renewed its content in such a way that a very new right to education has emerged. In order to consolidate and consecrate this evolution, UNESCO should put on its Agenda the drafting of a treaty on the right to education. All the more so that already its Medium- term Strategy – 2002-2007 (31 C/4) included “the proposal of a consolidated normative instrument on the right to education” (para. 63).
Also, the “Summary of the reports received from Member States on the measures taken to implement the 1960 Convention and Recommendation against Discrimination in Education” (41 C/33, 8 November 2021) reads2:
4. … Based on the findings, the report provides guidance for action at various levels, including an invitation for a global reflection to further strengthen norms and standards in international legally binding instruments to effectively realize the right to education and to examine the evolving agenda of the right to education within a lifelong learning perspective.
A Convention on the Right to Education could be the strongest expression of the “new social contract for education” called for by the recent UNESCO Report Reimagining our futures together: A new social contract for education (2021). It should:
– bring together and articulate with coherence, the existing main conventional provisions on the right to education;
– incorporate the most innovative provisions of the specific non-conventional instruments that have densified and expanded its normative content;
– innovate as a hybrid soft-hard law instrument to meet the interdisciplinary content of the right to education.
In line with the preceding considerations, here follows a contribution to the drafting of the Convention on the Right to Education, based on this author’s essay Revolution of the Right to Education (Brill/Sense, 2021).
Annex
Convention on the
Right to Education
Draft
Preamble
PART I
General theoretical-normative framework
Article 1 – Definition of education and of right to education
Article 2 – Highest human aptitudes
2.1 Rationality
2.2 Creativity
2.3 Morality
Article 3 – Superior values of education
3.1 Liberty
3.2 Reciprocity
3.3 ResponsibilityArticle
4 – Most general principles for interpreting and realising the right to education
4.1 Principles of the Ethics of Human Rights
4.1.1 Dignity and liberty
4.1.2 Equality and diversity
4.1.3 Universality and interdependence
4.2 Principles of the Ethics of the Right to Education
4.2.1 Primacy of the best interests of the subject of the right to education
4.2.2 Development of the human personality – free, full, harmonious
4.2.3 Primacy of education for human rights as Ethics of Humanity
4.3 Other principles
4.3.1 Priority of the right to education
4.3.2 Rightful education
4.3.3 Education throughout lifeArticle 4 – Most general principles for interpreting and realising the right to education
4.1 Principles of the Ethics of Human Rights
4.1.1 Dignity and libertyt
PART II
Specific normative content
Article 5 – Right-holders
5.1 Individual right
5.2 Collective interest
Article 6 – Object
6.1 Purpose
6.2 Mediations
6.3 Expanded vision
Article 7 – Duty-bearers
7.1 Family
7.2 State
7.3 International Community
7.4 Everyone
Article 8 – Educational rights
8.1 Right to pedagogical responsibility
8.2 Right to be different
8.3 Right to respect for human dignity and rights in education
8.4 Right to learn the and in the mother tongue
8.5 Right to the whole object of the right to education
8.6 Right to a right to education school
8.7 Right to admirable education professionals
8.8 Right to an effective remedy
Article 9 – Quality education
Article 10 – Private education
Article 11 – Promotion and protection
PART III
Final provisions
Article 12 – Reservations
Article 13 – Signature, ratification and accession
Article 14 – Entry into force
Article 15 – Denouncement
Article 16 – Amendments
Article 17 – Depositary and authentic texts
Preamble
1. Considering that:
a. In the Charter of the United Nations (UN, 1945) the peoples reaffirmed “faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person” (Preamble).
b. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO, 1945) was created because “the wide diffusion of culture, and the education of humanity for justice and liberty and peace are indispensable to the dignity of man and constitute a sacred duty which all the nations must fulfil in a spirit of mutual assistance and concern” (Preamble).
c. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN, 1948) was adopted because “disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind”, and proclaimed that “the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people” (Preamble).
d. The 1948 Universal Declaration has given rise to the International Human Rights Law, and human rights have progressively become the Ethics of Humanity and the Law of Law.
e. One of the human rights proclaimed by the Universal Declaration is the right to education (Article 26), whose normative content has been developed by numerous legal instruments and plentiful provisions.
2. Drawing from the present International Education Law that includes the following sources (in a chronological ascending order):
– Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN, 1948)
– Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (UN, 1951), Article 22
– Declaration of the Rights of the Child (UN, 1959), mainly Principles 5, 7 and 10
– Convention against Discrimination in Education (UNESCO, 1960)
– United Nations Declaration concerning the Promotion among Youth of the Ideals of Peace, Mutual Respect and Understanding between Peoples (UN, 1965)
– International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (UN, 1966), Articles 13 and 14
– Recommendation on Education for International Understanding and Co-operation and Peace and Education relating to Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (UNESCO, 1974)
– Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (UN, 1979), Article 10
– Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights in the Area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Organisation of American States, 1988), Articles 13 and 16
– Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN, 1989), Articles 28 and 29
– Convention on Technical and Vocational Education (UNESCO, 1989)
– International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (UN, 1990), Article 30
– African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (former Organisation of African Unity, 1990), Article 11
– World Declaration on Education for All: Meeting Basic Learning Needs, and Framework for Action to Meet Basic Learning Needs: Guidelines for implementing the World Declaration on Education for All (World Conference on Education for All, Jomtien, Thailand, 1990)
– Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities (UN, 1992), Article 4
– Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (World Conference on Human Rights, Vienna, Austria, 1993)
– Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education (Conference, Salamanca, Spain,1994)
– Declaration and Integrated Framework of Action on Education for Peace, Human Rights and Democracy (UNESCO, 1995)
– World Declaration on Higher Education for the Twenty-First Century: Vision and Action, and Framework for Priority Action for Change and Development in Higher Education (UNESCO, World Conference on Higher Education, 1998)
– Dakar Framework for Action – Education for All: Meeting Our Collective Commitments (World Education Forum, Dakar, Senegal, 2000)
– Declaration of Amsterdam on the Right to and the Rights in Education (Conference, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2004)
– The Right to Basic Education as a Fundamental Human Right and the Legal Framework for its Financing (Conference, Jakarta, Indonesia, 2005)
– Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN, 2006),
Article 24
– Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UN, 2007),
Article 14
– United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training (UN, 2011)
– International Charter of Physical Education, Physical Activity and Sport (UNESCO, 2015)
– Recommendation concerning Technical and Vocational Education and Training (UNESCO, 2015)
– Recommendation on Adult Learning and Education (UNESCO, 2015)
– Incheon Declaration (World Education Forum, Incheon, Republic of Korea, 2015)
– Education 2030 Framework for Action (High-level Meeting, UNESCO, 2015)
– Global Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications Concerning Higher Education (UNESCO, 2019)
– Recommendation on Open Educational Resources (UNESCO, 2019)
3. Taking stock of other jurisprudential, doctrinal and programmatic developments of the normative content of the right to education;
4. Recalling that the UNESCO Medium-term Strategy – 2002-2007 (31 C/4) included “the proposal of a consolidated normative instrument on the right to education” (para. 63);
5. With the aim to enhance the consistency, unity, readability and effectivity of the present international normativity on the right to education;
6. Forward-looking, illuminated by our superior values and best knowledge, and believing that education is the sole hope for Humanity;
The General Conference of UNESCO adopts the following Convention on the Right to Education, whose form and content seek to fit into its particulars and stakes.
PART I
General
theoretical-normative framework
Article 1
Definition of education and of right to education
States Parties to the present Convention share the following understanding:
1.1 The genetic worth underlying the ethical dignity of the human species is the substratum of its perfectibility or educability.
1.2 The human perfecting or education, broadly considered, consists in learning, lifelong and life large, through all influences and experiences, unintentional and intentional, which contribute to generating the personality of each human being. Strictly understood, education is an intentional, organised communication process of learning the values, knowledge, competencies (capacities, skills), sentiments, attitudes, behaviours, through which the human communities ensure their survival, reproduce their identity and each of their members forms his or her personality.
1.3 For the purpose of the present Convention, education is understood in the strict sense, and the human right to education is amply defined as right to quality education as internationally agreed, supported by the needed general and individual conditions as required by the interdependence of human rights.
Article 2
Highest human aptitudes
States Parties to the present Convention agree that education should aim at the personal flourishing and social wellbeing – for happier lives and living together, enjoying our fabulous and powerful diversity – through the cultivation of the human perfectibility, that is, of the seeds of the highest aptitudes contained in the human genome, namely: Rationality, Creativity, Morality.
2.1 Rationality
Rationality, as here understood, means the faculty of abstraction from the variety of the concrete, sensible, immediate world, empowering human beings with the liberty of conceptualisation and imagination. It is driven by the semiotic aptitude of the human species, that is, the ability for the creation and use of symbols or signs, notably language.
2.2 Creativity
The liberty of rationality opens to a temporality transcending the present, made up of past and future, endowing human beings with the aptitude to creativity, that is, with the power to visioning, inventing and striving for possible better alternatives to the present human condition.
2.3 Morality
Morality – the aptitude and need to make choices about the good/right and evil/wrong, the sense of life and how living together – is the most sublime fruit of the human species creativity and may be considered the most distinguishing dimension of the anthropological perfectibility.
Article 3
Superior values of education
States Parties to the present Convention recognise that Liberty, Reciprocity and Responsibility should be considered the highest expressions of a humanely developed personality and, therefore, the superior values of education.
3.1 Liberty
Liberty should be the overarching value of education. Its highest form is autonomy that constitutes the quintessence of human dignity. Furthermore, it is the principle of legitimacy of the pedagogical value of the authority and the psychological and methodological condition of every true learning.
3.2 Reciprocity
There is no human liberty without reciprocity, that is, the recognition of the equal liberty of others. Reciprocity should be regarded as the most humanising dimension of the development of the personality. It is inherent to the concept of human rights, implying duties: rights and duties are like the two sides of the Gold Medal of Human Dignity.
3.3 Responsibility
Liberty and reciprocity imply responsibility. Responsibility is the highest manifestation of moral conscience as a sentiment of recognition of the common fragility and destiny, calling for empathy and solidarity. It has an individual and a collective dimension, all the more so that the world becomes increasingly interdependent.
Article 4
Most general principles for interpreting and realising the right to education
States Parties to the present Convention do not object to the following principles and understandings, which should guide the interpretation and realisation of the right to education.
4.1 Principles of the Ethics of Human Rights
Human rights constitute an Ethics, because their source and sense are the worth and dignity of the human person, whose absolute primacy they consecrate. The Ethics of Human Rights concentrates the juice of the best fruits of the cultural plurality of the humankind, expressing the quintessence of the evolution of its conscience. Here is the most profound and transcendent significance of the Ethics of Human Rights: The Human Being should be a God for human beings. His temple sanctum sanctorum (the most sacred place) is Human Dignity.
Here are the overarching Principles of the Ethics of Human Rights:
4.1.1 Dignity and liberty
The Principle of Human Dignity may be considered the supreme invention of Civilisation. It derives from equal belonging to the human species and its quintessence consists in the capacity for freedom exercised as autonomy.
4.1.2 Equality and diversity
The individual and cultural diversity is as inherent to the human dignity as equality and liberty. Safeguarding their dialectical relationship is a crucial challenge for the survival and aggrandizement of the humankind.
4.1.3 Universality and interdependence
Human rights are universal, by definition, a corollary of which is the principle of non-discrimination. They are interdependent because they interact. The right to life and the right to education epitomise their interdependence.
4.2 Principles of the Ethics of the Right to Education
The right to education carries an ethical significance essentially because it is no longer a right over the human being, but a right of the human being. The Ethics of the Right to Education may be summed up in the following principles:
4.2.1 Primacy of the best interests of the subject of the right to education
The principle of the primacy of the best interests of the subject of the right to education reflects the general principle of the primacy of the human rights subject and generalises the principle of the primacy of the best interests of the child in education. It should be held as the supreme principle of International Education Law.
4.2.2 Development of the human personality – free, full, harmonious
What interest of the subject of the right to education could be higher than the free, full and harmonious development of his or her personality? This principle – that echoes a leitmotif of the history of the most advanced pedagogic thought – identifies the specific value of the right to education that should be the sense of all learnings.
4.2.3 Primacy of education for human rights as Ethics of Humanity
The principle of the primacy of education for human rights as Ethics of Humanity reaffirms the traditional primacy of moral education and synthesizes the amplitude of its present conception as an imperative of learning the values the species has invented for being and living better: human dignity and rights.
4.3 Other principles
4.3.1 Priority of the right to education
The priority of the right to education – that is relative because of the human rights interdependence – reflects the human primacy always attributed to education. It is recognised by International Human Rights Law. Indeed, education is the greatest power and, therefore, the greatest responsibility of the human species.
4.3.2 Rightful Education
Education or learning throughout life is an ancient insight that has become an international principle. Nowadays, we know that human beings’ educability changes, as they age, but never ceases, and can even increase. The aptitude, need and desire to learn have no age or satiety. Education is a human right from cradle to grave.
4.3.3 Education throughout life
Education or learning throughout life is an ancient insight that has become an international principle. Nowadays, we know that human beings’ educability changes, as they age, but never ceases, and can even increase. The aptitude, need and desire to learn have no age or satiety. Education is a human right from cradle to grave.
PART II
Specific normative content
Article 5
Right-holders
5.1 Individual right
5.1.1 States Parties to the present Convention recognise that everyone within their jurisdiction – children, youth, adults – holds the human right to education, at least to free basic education, without discrimination of any kind, that is, without inequality of access and treatment, in particular because of:
a. age, gender, disability or other personal condition;
b. ethnic or national origin, including national minorities, nomadic peoples, migrants and refugees;
c. other grounds and circumstances.
Differences of treatment are legitimate only on the basis of need or merit.
5.1.2 Special attention should be accorded to children, girls, women and illiterate adults in general, as well as to some other more vulnerable groups often discriminated against, marginalised and left behind.
5.1.3 As a child is dependent on adults and because every human being lives in communities, families and States are co-holders of children’s right to education. Their rights are not own and competing rights, however, but rather responsibilities.
5.2 Collective interest
5.2.1 The right to education bears a particular collective dimension when it comes to some communities, such as indigenous peoples or national minorities, whose cultural identity is mainly protected through their educational institutions.
5.2.2 The right to education bears a general collective dimension too, because it is a common or public and global good, entitling each nation to require from its members to gain basic education, and justifying international concern.
Article 6
Object
States Parties to the present Convention, acknowledging that the object of the right to education comprehends its purpose and mediations, and should be open-ended, agree on the following:
6.1 Purpose
6.1.1 The aims of education shall be as follows:
a. Developing the human personality – freely, fully, harmoniously – and the sense of the personal worth, dignity and uniqueness.
b. Sowing the Ethics of Human Rights and other common cultural values compatible with its respect.
c. Preparing for an autonomous and responsible life – as human being, parent, citizen, worker – in a democratic, pluralistic society and a globalised world.
6.1.2 The purpose of education is both individual and social, and learning to know, to respect and to appreciate the wealth of the human diversity should be a permanent concern of education. Yet, cultural beliefs, values, traditions and practices should not impair the ethical personal core of the right to education, which shall never be sacrificed to collective interests, let alone to inhuman purposes. Whichever forced indoctrination is not compatible with the human right to education.
6.2 Mediations
Mediations of the right to education comprise all factors of the educational phenomenon. They include persons, learnings, methods, materials, institutions and the cultural and social environment.
6.2.1 Because education is an essentially relational and communicational phenomenon, persons are the deepest and most far-reaching educational mediation, especially parents and education professionals.
6.2.2 The right to education requires providing learnings addressing the many-sidedness of the personality and existence of the human beings, as well as the variety of their talents and interests.
6.2.3 Education methods and materials shall be respectful of the human dignity and rights, excluding, therefore, any kind of offence to physical, psychological and moral integrity of children, in particular, as well as stereotypes.
6.2.4 Family and school are obviously the main educational institutions the role of family is unique, and the mission of school, which has become the central education institution in contemporary societies, is far-reaching.
6.2.5 After all, the most involving educational mediation is the whole cultural and social environment, which is the backdrop of whatever policies of education throughout life.
6.3 Expanded vision
The right to education, like every human right, is an open-ended concept. Its object includes the conventional content, even implicit, such as the recognition of studies, diplomas and degrees, as well as the agreed non-conventional one, notably new literacies and the right to Internet, when available.
Article 7
Duty-bearers
States Parties to the present Convention are aware that responsible for the right to education are, at different levels, the family, the State, the International Community and everyone.
7.1 Family
Family, in its varying existential realities, is naturally the primary responsible for children’s human rights. Its responsibility for the right to education includes creating a loving and stimulating environment, according to its resources, as well as fostering the desire to learn.
7.2 State
States are legally and politically the principal responsible for all human rights of everyone under their jurisdiction. Regarding the right to education, a State’s main obligations concern family and school.
7.2.1 State shall value and treat family as the most deeply touching influence on the life and destiny of a human being and the wellbeing of society at large. Therefore, families’ life conditions shall become a political priority, and parenting education should be a concern since the school years.
7.2.2 For achieving the full realisation of the right to education, every State undertake to maintain a public school system that shall offer:
a. early childhood care and education
b. primary education
c. secondary education
d. tertiary education
e. vocational education
f. education throughout life
7.2.3 A sound basic education, whatever its denomination, shall provide everyone with:
a. Common learnings: learning tools (literacy, numeracy, digitalcy) and fundamental learnings, which should include universal and other compatible values, essential knowledge and competencies (capacities, skills), notably for critical thinking, creative problem-solving, wise decision-making, collaborative work, as well as languages.
b. Optional learnings: learnings meeting the variety and wealth of individual talents and interests, including vocational guidance, education and training, for the sake both of everyone and the society at large.
7.2.4 A sound basic education shall be completely free, and all school levels shall become free as well. The extent of gratuity may vary according to each State’s resources but shall take into account the principle of human rights interdependence.
7.2.5 If no one is to be left behind, a right to education policy shall be guided by the principles of inclusion and equity, so understood:
a. Inclusive education is one that welcomes every child and adolescent, in particular, as he or she is, and strives to satisfy their different learning needs, without any discrimination.
b. Equity in education is a principle of guarantee of a minimum tending to maximum of satisfaction of the right to education, giving more to those most in need, for the sake of real equality.
7.3 International Community
International Community carries a subsidiary responsibility for the right to education, notably by means of its intergovernmental organisations and institutions, when a State is not able or not willing to comply with its international obligations, implying co-operation and other appropriate action.
7.4 Everyone
The right to education, as every human right, is a general responsibility of individuals, civic organisations and social institutions, and is self-opposable too: each one has a duty towards his or her human dignity, as well as towards our common humanity, to do the utmost to realise her or his perfectibility or educability.
Article 8
Educational rights
States Parties to the present Convention recognise that the right to education is a normative complex of rights and undertake to respect, protect and realise them. They can be systematised and understood as follows:
8.1 Right to pedagogical
responsibility
The first right of the subject of the right to education, as a child, is the right to the pedagogical responsibility of adults, primarily of mother and father. Pedagogical is the responsibility for children’s right to education, with its affective and normative dimensions, that is, as right both to pedagogical love and to pedagogical authority: pedagogical is the love that knows the need children have of authority for the formation of their personality; pedagogical is the authority that, being respectful of human dignity and rights, is felt as an expression of love.
8.2 Right to be different
After the right to the pedagogical responsibility of adults, as a child, the most empowering right of the subject of the right to education, as a human being, is the right to be different. It is crucial for Humanity in becoming, because it is by means of education that the human species is reborn and can perfect itself, through its children, if they are not dispossessed of their right to be different and better than adults, including their beloved parents.
8.3 Right to respect for human
dignity and rights in education
The right to be different is inseparable from the principle of equality by dignity and rights that is at stake especially in educational discipline. Moreover, children and students in general should be encouraged to participate in family, school, cultural and social life.
8.4 Right to learn the and in the
mother tongue
The mother tongue is not a choice, it is an identity inheritance, bearing a worldview. And how to learn without understanding the language of teaching?
8.5 Right to the whole object of
the right to education
The object of the right to education includes all levels and types of education and is open to an expanded vision of the learnings required by its purpose, without excluding controversial matters and including the material and immaterial conditions and factors of access and quality.
8.6 Right to a right to education
school
A right to education school is a community, welcoming, humanist, empowering school that is a safe, healthy, comfortable, beautiful setting, inspired by the value of liberty and fostering personal autonomy and flourishing, open to the diversity of ages, needs talents and interests of the plurality of the subjects of the right to education. In such a meaningful
school, consistent with its civilisational mission, there is no place for dislike, underperformance, indiscipline, violence.
8.7 Right to admirable education
professionals
Education professionals should be duly selected, educated and rewarded, with an empowering status, including academic freedom and desirable professional self-government. At the core of professionalism in education is example. In no other profession is example so inherently central, essential and professional. Education professionals’ exemplarity should be understood as an exceptional incarnation of a blend of qualities, values and knowledge. As a consequence, they should be chosen from the best human beings.
8.8 Right to an effective remedy
The availability of an effective remedy for violations of human rights is a general legal principle. The right to education shall be justiciable, including the possibility of accessing international bodies as a last resort.
Article 9
Quality education
States Parties to the present Convention, aware that the right to education may be considered the most complex human right, mainly because of the plurality of its stakeholders, of the variety of its aims and contents, and of the cultural, sociological and psychological counterweight of the traditional pedagogical mindset, share the following vision of quality education:
9.1 The overarching criterion of quality education shall be its consistency with the primordial personal purpose of the right to education that demands a rightful education. Bearing an obvious cultural and social dimensions too, its conception should include a contextually variable perspective, compatible with its ethical core.
9.2 The conditions and factors of quality education are manifold – material and non-material, tangible and intangible, attuned to the individual uniqueness, needs and aspirations, as well as to the collective ideal and well-being – but its deepest and purest sources are the quality of parents’ love and the personal qualities of education professionals.
This is a humanistic, holistic, empowering vision of quality education. It is a vision opposed to an education captured and misused by ethnic reflexes, cultural traditions, religious beliefs, partisan indoctrination or neoliberal economism. At the end of the day, the right to education should be envisioned as right to learn to be human with the best human beings, because what should be mostly politically and pedagogically worthy is the magnitude of the human personality.
Article 10
Private education
States Parties to the present Convention agree that:
10.1 Although the public service required by the right to education is an inalienable States’ obligation, private entities are welcome for contributing to its universalisation and the enrichment of educational offer. States may fund private education, without any illegitimate distinction, but they shall give priority to funding public education and never sustain for-profit institutions.
10.2 As private providers can foster the commodification and marketisation of education, with effects of discrimination and impoverishment of education, public power is required to adopt and supervise compliance with regulations ensuring that families and private providers of education comply with international and national standards respectful of the normative integrity of the right to education.
States’ international responsibility for human rights must never be privatised. There should not be liberties of education against the human right to education.
Article 11
Promotion and protection
There shall be established an international body for the promotion and protection of the right to education, as recognised and understood in the present Convention, whose composition and functions will be discussed and proposed by an open-ended working group established by UNESCO Director- General, with the participation of the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education and NGOs.
PART III
Final provisions
Article 12
Reservations
Reservations to this Convention shall not be permitted.
Article 13
Signature, ratification
and accession
The present Convention shall be subject to ratification by signatory States and open for accession by any State.
Article 14
Entry into force
The present Convention shall enter into force on the thirtieth day after the deposit of the twentieth instrument of ratification or accession. It shall enter into force with respect to any other State thirty days after the deposit of its instrument of ratification or accession.
Article 15
Denouncement
This Convention cannot be denounced.
Article 16
Amendments
This Convention may be amended by the General Conference of UNESCO.
Article 17
Depositary and authentic texts
The instruments of ratification or acceptance of the present Convention shall be deposited with UNESCO Director- General.
In conformity with Article 102 of the Charter of the United Nations, the present Convention shall be registered with the Secretariat of the United Nations at the request of UNESCO Director-General.
The Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish texts of the present Convention shall be equally authentic.
In witness thereof the undersigned plenipotentiaries, being duly authorized thereto by their respective Governments, have signed the present Convention.
