6. Education

 

 

 

42  The realization of the rights of the child goes primarily through the right to education, in the wider sense of the term, both at school as well as within the family, and the communities. This right therefore incorporates « all life experiences and learning processes that allow children, individually and collectively, to develop their own personality, their skills and their capacities and to live a full and satisfactory life in society [53] ».

 

43                    An unprecedented effort required to assure education for all

 

Article 28 of the Convention foresees « [...] primary education compulsory and free to all. » This commitment is also part of the Millennium Development Goals, target 2.A: « Ensure that, by 2015, all children, boys and girls, complete a full course of primary schooling.» All concerned actors must commit themselves to the fundamental right to education.

However, we are very far from the objective of inclusive education: issues such as sex-related disparities, the problem of minorities, of uprooted children and of children with disabilities are still present.

 

Out of the more 4 million Roma children in Europe, it is estimated up to 2 million those who will never attend school during their life. Out of those who go to school, 70% are enrolled in special classes. Rapport 2005 of the Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities

 

44                    The quality of education is a subject of grave concern

In spite of important quantitative progress achieved in the last 20 years, the quality of education has not followed and often worsened, implying that many children abandon school.

 

 

In Latin America « the increase of the school registration's rate is not followed by an improvement in the teaching quality and, therefore, the duration of children's presence in the educational system is below expectations and international standards. »[54]

If we do not want to sacrifice generations of children, in many countries,  apart from the necessary increase of international aid, it will be necessary to redefine drastically budgetary priorities so that the right to education becomes effective for millions of children still deprived of school.

 

 

In all countries, the cultural uprooting of many children constitutes a major factor of exclusion from school and eventually of marginalization and impoverishment.

To allow for the largest number of these children to overcome these difficulties, it is desirable to call upon educators-mediators, coming from the same cultural background of the child, and having well assimilated the culture/s in which the child has also to integrate.

 

In Brazil, a large number of families coming from rural areas move to the cities. They have no choice than to live in shantytowns or on the streets. Children and young people hardly survive because of violence, drugs and all kind of trafficking present in this milieu.

In the "barrios" or  in the shantytowns, when there is a public school, teachers usually come from the urban middle class. They have such a different experience of life that they do not manage to understand their students' ones. Indeed, the latter, when at school, cannot express the brutal reality in which they are absorbed because they would put their life into danger if they talk about it.

Moreover, teachers are disrupted by some students' behaviours because they do not understand the cause. This may lead to their rejection despite their initial good will. At the end, these teachers remain unfamiliar with their students' experience. Very poor results and early school leaving are the visible and unacceptable effect.

This educator-mediator, with a similar, but not identical journey, can understand better the difficulties the child has to face: he/she has experienced what the child is living and is experiencing now what the child will face in the future. He/she can then help him/her to maintain, complete and give value to his/her culture of origin. At the same time, he/she enriches it with dynamics of new cultural references; above all, he/she is a model to the child.

It is necessary to train a large number of educators-mediators coming from children realities, who can help them to move gradually into a new culture by inspiring and supporting their resilience.

Uprooted children's academic failure and abandonment of school affect a large number of children, even in industrialized countries.

 

This system not only lacks in investment, but it seems also to be wedged between paradigms and conscious and unconscious attitudes, which do not allow to understand the requirements of the current world nor to find responses [57]. The consequences are institutional misunderstandings and the de-motivation of many teachers.

 

 

 

[53] General Comment 1 of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2001 CRC/GC/2001/1, §2: See also, General Comment 13 of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on the right to education (1999) and the Report : " Education For All: Meeting our Collective Commitments", Framework of Action adopted at the World Education Forum, Dakar, 26-28 April 2000.

[54] Latin America Position Paper, p. 13.

[55] Asia Position Paper,  p. 17.

[56] Example given by Father Clodoveo Piazza S.J., cf. note No 9.

[57] For instance, the development of tutors can favour knowledge sharing in teaching.