Presentation: The Right to Education

Abstract

Education is a specifically human good that arises from the need to develop as a human being. The human being, unlike other species, is an unfinished being who permanently needs the influence of others and education in order to be ‘fully human’, so its main purpose is to cultivate humanity (Savater 2005). The full development of personality and human dignity is the main purpose assigned to education in international law instruments and national legislations. If we are people through education, this means that it is an end in itself, as well as being a fundamental means for reducing poverty and inequalities, strengthening democracy and social cohesion.

Education is not only the engine of individual development but also of society as a whole, which is why it is a public good and a human right from which no one can be excluded. The right to education is closely related to citizenship, insofar as it broadens people's capacity to exercise their freedom and makes it possible to enjoy other rights; access to decent employment, freedom of expression or political participation are more feasible if people are educated. As Ricardo Hevia states in his article, ‘it is not for nothing that the right to education has been defined as the epitome of all other human rights’. But, at the same time, ensuring the right to education requires making other rights effective, such as the right to health, nutrition or the right of children not to work, which shows the indivisibility and interdependence of rights, respecting each and every one of them, and the need to develop intersectoral policies and inter-institutional coordination mechanisms that allow for the comprehensive exercise of all human rights’.