- What is the right to education?
- Importance of the right to education
- Characteristics of the right to education
- Role of the State in the right to education
- Right to education in Mexico
We explain what the right to education is, its essential characteristics and the role of the State. Also, education in Mexico.
What is the right to education?
The right to education is a human right fundamental, recognized in international conventions. It consists of having access to a free and compulsory primary education for all citizen, without distinction of race, sex, creed or social class.
Furthermore, it implies equitable access to higher education. It is, in particular, the elimination of any form of discrimination inside of institution basic educational. More specifically, in the organisms of the United Nations It is spoken of as 4-A: Available (Available, in English), Acceptable, Accessible and Adaptable.
Entities like the UNESCO and the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights are responsible internationally for promoting this right and making known its importance for the developing full of nations.
However, the right to education is not universally respected. It is estimated that 61 million children and 758 million adults in the world are illiterate due to the absence of primary education, according to the 2016 Global Education Monitoring Report.
These figures are even more eloquent when the distinction between educational access for women and men is weighed, since in many cultures women occupy a subordinate place outside of all kinds of fundamental rights.
Importance of the right to education
Education is a tool for change and growth, which provides Humans the opportunity to plan a better future for themselves and also for their community.
A society with plural access to education is a society better able to give itself what it needs, to innovate and seek creative solutions to its problems traditional, and to enter into the economic, political and cultural exchange that the globalized world proposes in more egalitarian and less subaltern terms.
In addition, education affects other fundamental aspects of life, such as Health, family and reproductive planning, work, etc. For this reason, the importance of free, free and direct access to education can never be overemphasized.
The struggle of certain non-governmental organizations in the world is to project and execute legal obligations so that different countries offer their citizens a minimum of educational opportunities in accordance with international standards.
Characteristics of the right to education
Taking into consideration the 4-A scheme proposed by the United Nations, we can say that the right to education must be guaranteed, essentially, as follows:
- Availability. It refers to the presence of educational establishments throughout the territory, to meet the educational needs of the entire population. Such schools require a infrastructure minimum adequate to house their students during the study period exclusively and uninterruptedly, and they must have the didactic and pedagogical materials necessary for the learning effective.
- Acceptability. Beyond infrastructure, institutions Educational programs must have an educational program that is endorsed by the appropriate government agencies, whose contents are culturally and socially appropriate for the population, of good quality and acceptable to both students and their representatives.
- Adaptability. Study programs must not only be normatively adequate, but must be able to adapt to changes in society, many of which will be precisely introduced by the very presence of mass education. The country's education professionals should be able to recognize, promote and guide the change in study curricula taking it into account.
- Accessibility. Under no circumstances should students be prevented from entering the school, discriminated against or subjected to conditions that violate their ability to study. On the other hand, the access roads to the educational establishment must be in the best possible shape, so as not to physically impede the transit to or from the school to their place of return.
Role of the State in the right to education
The importance of education in the planning of public policies. In fact, in 1966 the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of the United Nations was signed, in which it was recognized that the State is the necessary guarantor of providing the structure and resources necessary for quality education.
Various institutions of regional and global scope explicitly subscribe to this idea. However, this does not prevent private institutions from collaborating in efforts to bring education to future generations. But the State is the highest authority and the maximum responsible for the supervision of the contents taught.
In addition, it must guarantee the maintenance of institutions and the training of human Resources minimum to feed the educational system and guarantee its quality and perpetuity.
Right to education in Mexico
The Mexican State is also committed to law, both internationally and nationally, to guarantee access to education for its citizens, taking into account the cultural and ethnic particularities of the highly diverse Mexican population. And as in many other countries of Latin America, this constitutes a real challenge.
The Mexican public sector supports the vast majority of elementary schools (8 out of 10) and upper secondary schools (2 thirds of the total). It also supports a policy of inclusion of marginalized or rural areas through teleschools, preschools and indigenous or community elementary schools, and other similar initiatives.
Thus, since 2014 the Mexican State has reported (according to Senate reports) an increase in child enrollment at an early age, between 5 and 12 years old.
However, the figures are much less encouraging after entering the adolescence. There are worrying figures of school dropout, motivated by a variety of factors: the poverty, child labor, drug addiction and lack of family support.
On the other hand, the levels of inequality between urban population and the rural, but it is linked to belonging to the numerous original Mexican ethnic groups, which reveals a clear racial problem underlying educational policies.