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The minimalist critique of human rights advanced by legal historian Samuel Moyn argues that human rights are ineffective in addressing material inequality because, rather than striving for equality, they focus on ensuring sufficient protection levels. This article analyses the right to education model which international human rights bodies have expanded to demonstrate the overstretched nature of the minimalist critique. By examining how the right to education provisions of international human rights treaties are interpreted by various United Nations human rights mechanisms, the article argues that the international human rights system has advanced a model of right to education that reaches beyond the notion of sufficiency. The works of these bodies are analysed in light of the privatisation of education. In defining the connection between the equality and liberty dimensions of the right to education, international human rights bodies have prioratised ensuring equal opportunities over the liberty to private education. The aim of the right to education is not merely to provide basic literacy to the poor but also to assure equal educational opportunities to all.

The study is an attempt to understand the prevailing discourse in India on education as a right by closely reading the parliamentary debates on The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (Second Amendment) Bill, 2017. Prior to the passing of the above-mentioned amendment bill The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 had debarred schools from detaining or expelling a child till the completion of her elementary education. This provision was amended by the Indian Parliament by passing the bill. When the bill was moved in the Indian parliament it generated debate on the various aspects of education and schooling. The study critically analyses the texts of two proceedings of the parliamentary debate: one from the lower house (Lok Sabha) and the other from the upper house (Rajya Sabha). The study concludes that the deliberation on the bill turned the right-based approach on elementary education almost upside down. The 86th amendment in the Indian constitution and subsequent enactment of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 had recognized children in the age group of 6–14 years as ‘right holders’ while the Indian state had been identified as the ‘duty bearer’. The discourse emerged in the Indian Parliament during the debate on the Amendment Bill, 2017 constituted Indian children of school-going age, their parents and teachers as groups accountable to the state for achieving the goals for universal elementary education, while the Indian state was constituted as an entity with the right to demand compliances from children, parents and teachers.

This article addresses key issues of sport mega events’ social and educational legacies. The rhetoric of the “legacy” of mega events has been imprinted in every bid presented to different countries and cities to influence their decision whether to host or not this type of event. Visible and also intangible effects are often cited as part of the “legacy” packaged to convince host citizens to adhere to the events. In the past few decades, several studies have been questioning the “legacy” rhetoric, presenting data demonstrating that despite the positive outcomes implied in the concept, these events often cause major impacts in the lives of host countries through several dimensions that cannot be painted with a “positive” tone. This study aims to analyze the educational legacies left by the 2014 FIFA World Cup (WC) in Porto Alegre, capital city of the Brazilian Southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul. We gathered data using participant observation methodology, surveys, and interviews with inhabitants of communities affected by the WC works. Our data reveal that the lives of public schools, students, and families in the region affected by the event were severely disrupted by the WC works without neither the Local Organizing Committee nor the local authorities offering adequate compensation or plan to alleviate these communities’ damages. We conclude by arguing that the WC has provoked a negative educational impact over communities that were already socially disadvantaged and most in need of good functioning of their schools.

Florian Matthey-Prakash, The Right to Education in India: The Importance of Enforceability of a Fundamental Right (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2019), 446 pp. ₹1,495.

The essay explores how the academic boycott of Israel advocates for the right to education and right to freedom of movement of Palestinians by reflecting on the politics of space, mobility, and borders in Palestine. I situate the boycott movement in the context of struggles over the neoliberalization of the academy and academic repression, especially censorship of the Palestine question, and in relation to movements for social and economic justice.

This article describes the Brazilian juvenile justice system and the educational rights of incarcerated adolescents with learning disabilities, to discuss how and why they are “invisible” and deprived of adequate treatment for their specific needs. The main reasons reside (a) in the complex national legal structure of the juvenile justice system; (b) in the lack of specific legislation concerning the rights of students with learning disabilities in general and of incarcerated adolescents in particular, both groups not eligible for special education services; and (c) the general difficulty to diagnose learning disabilities, especially in correctional facilities. Paradoxically, despite the complexity of the juvenile justice system legal organization, nationally, there is no specific law on education for incarcerated adolescents; moreover, the lack of data collection on the prevalence of learning disabilities does not allow the federated states to create suitable laws and programs.

Focused on the socio-economic background of tribal students in the 142 ashram schools of Koraput district in Odisha, this article explores the educational environment and quality of education for tribal children in India. As their educational performance is largely unsatisfactory, the primary causes behind low educational achievements are explored. It is found that the educational processes largely disregard the socio-cultural characteristics and linguistic skills that tribal students bring to the classroom. Specifically, tribal children experience serious language difficulties during the initial years of schooling. The practice of using the dominant state language, Odia, as the sole/dominant medium of instruction in all ashram schools, rather than the children’s mother tongue, appears to leave young learners illiterate in their mother tongue and also fosters low achievement levels in the dominant language.

This article presents a short critical appraisal of some major recommendations of the K. Kasturirangan’s Committee on the Draft National Education Policy 2019. The committee underlines that the system requires a major overhaul; comprehensive reforms need to be attempted, and piecemeal/quick-fix solutions will not work. Some recommendations in the nearly 500-page report are path-breaking, many deserve applause, some are unacceptable and quite a few require rethinking. Since education is a long-term activity with far-reaching implications for the future of the nation, a long-term vision and not short-term compulsions should guide the formulation of a National Education Policy.

Queensland’s Human Rights Act 2019 includes a right to education. Schools will be required to consider the human rights of children when making decisions about enrolments and educational adjustments. This article investigates how the right to education might operate in Queensland state schools, and discusses the potential of this new provision to bring positive change for children with disabilities.

Right to Education (RTE) Act is intended to provide free and compulsory elementary education to all children aged 6–14 years. This article examines key constituents of elementary education in view of the RTE Act such as current attendance rate, types of institutions, medium of instruction, neighbourhood schools, Monthly per capita expenditure on elementary education (MPCEE)and incentives during pre- and post-RTE period using National Sample Survey Organisation’s 64th (2007–2008) and 71st (2014) round of unit level data. The result shows that far from the universalisation, exclusion is getting entrenched across gender, sector, and socio-religious and economic groups. Female children, children from deprived socio-religious groups, rural areas and from the bottom MPCE quintile have not only fared lower in most of the studied parameters during the pre-RTE period, but the gap from their counterpart has widened immensely during the post-RTE period. Free education has declined and monthly per capita expenditure on elementary education has increased sharply. Children are moving out of the government to private schools. The findings raise serious questions on the intention of the government to fulfil its mandate under RTE.

The Right to Education Act, 2009 that came into existence after a decade-long struggle by civil society organisations, mandates that no children shall be detained till they complete their elementary education, that is, Class 8. However, an amendment to the Act, The Second Amendment Bill, 2017, on the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education, 2009, amends this provision by stating that regular examinations should be held in Class 5 and Class 8. If the child fails in the examination, s/he will be given additional instructions to take a re-examination within two months and if the child again fails, then the state government will have the discretion to detain the child in the same class. There are differing views on whether children should be detained for failing examinations in elementary school. Some argue that an automatic promotion reduces incentives for children to learn and for teachers to teach. Others point out that detention demotivates children and results in increased dropouts and shifts the focus away from the systemic factors that affect learning such as the availability of trained qualified teachers, adequate infrastructure, textbooks, safety and security in schools.

Recently, doubt has been cast on the ability of Scottish education to meet relevant Human Rights requirements relating to education. This article will outline both a means of clarification for international requirements for Human Rights Education, and an analysis of documentation outlining Scottish educational policy for compatibility with these requirements. In doing so, this article will outline the development, and application, of a tool for document analysis focused on international requirements for Human Rights Education. The findings of this analysis suggest a number of key limitations in the current approach favoured by the Scottish Government. This approach posits Global Citizenship Education as a cross-curricular theme capable of fulfilling obligations in relation to rights in Curriculum for Excellence. I suggest that there is a distinct lack of support for the Human Rights Education requirements relating to the inclusion of taught content about human rights and that problems of apoliticality and the misguided focus on responsibilities all stand as significant barriers to Global Citizenship Education meeting the aims of Human Rights Education. I argue, on this basis, that the strategy currently adopted in Scotland appears to fall short of meeting basic international requirements for Human Rights Education.

A vast range of issues has been debated and discussed in India in the context of the social sector during the last decade, including the right to education, land rights, food security, health for all, gender equality, women’s empowerment, livelihood and employment guarantee. Successive governments have also tried to promote the idea of sustainable and equitable economic growth and development but the reality is that high levels of both economic and social disparities continue to exist. Contemporary political discourse contains recurring references to increasing inequality in society in both developed and developing nations. Against this background the international community, in line with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), developed a new template of sustainable development goals (SDGs)—17 goals and 169 strategies for the implementation of a global development agenda. However, in a country as diverse as India, equitable development can be brought about only through the implementation of broad-based inclusive social policies backed by an adequate reservoir of financial resources. It was felt that the character and contour of such an approach for development thus needed debate and discussion and it was in this context that a two-day national seminar, Indian Perspectives on Social Sector Issues and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Policies, Prospects and Future Directions, was organised by the Council for Social Development to arrive at a consensus on social development.

The subject of this article is the right of adults to education, with a focus on the critical analysis of education policy. We discuss human rights as a framework for citizenship in two national contexts of Southern Europe with the purpose of underlining key differences and similarities in countries with diverse histories but a similarly high number of low-qualified adults among their population. In view of the above, this paper provides a detailed historical context for adult education policy in those countries and expounds on how current Portuguese and Italian educational policy agendas have considered the right of adults to education in the context of their democratic regimes. For critical analysis we use Tomaševski’s theoretical 4A framework, built mainly for school contexts, and apply it to adult education policy. The objective is to understand ways of realizing the right of adults to education by means of policy measures undertaken by governments in those national states. Thus, we employed as an object of analysis the study of availability, accessibility, acceptability and adaptability of adult education and learning against the backdrop of current changes occurring in Europe. This heuristic exercise makes a significant contribution to adult education literature in times of neoliberal trends.

The Philippine historical accounts show that Indigenous Peoples (IPs) in the Philippines have long been suffering from discrimination and lack of access to Education. The IPs comprise about 10% to 20% of the Philippines’s 102.9 million total populations. The Philippine educational system’s neo-colonial background creates injustice on some cultural minorities who can attend school. For this matter, the study measures the perceptions of the Dumagats on their rights to Education. It focuses on the Dumagat communities in the provinces of Nueva Ecija and Aurora in the Philippines. By using the simple binary quantitative tool, the qualitative method of research, the application of Indigenous research methods, and critical pedagogy as analytical lens, the study found that (a) the implementation of the Philippine policies on the rights to Education as reflected on the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act (IPRA) of 1997 is more of a tokenism; (b) the enjoyment of the right to Education of IPs is hindered mainly by poverty; (c) English remains the widely used medium of instruction in most IP curricula; and (d) the IPs’ limited knowledge on specific provisions of IPRA related to the access to Education and culture is short of the policy ideals. The above findings necessitate change agents to start a process of pedagogical liberation. The National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) personnel and IP teachers can play a vital role as change agents and may act to correct the historical injustices on IPs’ rights and welfare.

Praveen Jha and Geetha Rani (eds), Right to Education in India: Resources, Institutions and Public Policy. New Delhi: Routledge, 2016, ₹895 (hardback), 366 pp.

This article begins with an overview of the current elementary education scenario in India. It notes that while the Right to Education (RTE) Act has made progress in access to education, the delivery of education has worsened. The article analyses the reasons for this by using two main levers of the system: financial support and accountability. As far as support is concerned, three areas need attention, specifically, the low funding of education when compared with the global average; a mismatch between funds approved, actual funds available and funds spent; and inefficient, delayed and rushed expenditure. In terms of accountability, two main systemic gaps have been explored: accountability at the input level instead of the output level and accountability to funders instead of the community, with an emphasis on teachers’ accountability. Based on findings from analyses, the article concludes with recommendations for the better performance of the education system and argues for an overhaul of the processes that are currently in place.

Abstr The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that ‘Everyone has the right to education’ and it ‘shall be compulsory’. I note that there is a tension between ‘right’ and ‘compulsory’ in the Declaration because, by definition, a right is an entitlement and not an obligation. The reasons why education is an exception to the rule have not been explored in detail, and efforts seem always to concentrate on the ‘compulsory’ side of the tension in trying to understand exactly what it would entail, and fail to direct attention to the ‘right’ element of the problem. In this article, I wish to turn the problem on its head and take issue with the idea that education should be understood as a right. The argument is, rather, that education should be conceived as a duty – an obligation that all human beings have towards themselves and their communities. In order to do this, the author refers to the works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814), the German post-Kantian idealist, whose works in education have been long neglected and forgotten. Nevertheless, they are of great help in trying to make sense of education not as a right, but as a duty. I argue that such understanding dissolves the tension between ‘right’ and ‘compulsory’, and that a reframing of an understanding of ‘what education is’ needs to occur not just at the individual, but also at the societal level.

The Government of India made a series of policy changes regarding elementary school education in the country in the period 2002–2012. In 2009 the Government made free (and compulsory) education a fundamental right of every child in India between the ages of six and fourteen. The Government also set out the infrastructure provisions that schools were mandated to implement. In doing so, it adopted a rights-based approach to elementary school education. This paper reports on a study of the effectiveness of this approach. It is argued that merely declaring a public service as a citizens’ right does not entail either optimal access or optimal implementation. Rather, the paper argues that claiming of rights and implementation requires an enabling environment and it is concluded that societal power bias and social accountability are important factors in creating such an environment. The examples of Kerala and Bihar, respectively the best and worst performing states in India with regard to implementation of the right to education, were used to examine these states’ different levels of performance regarding the mandates defined by the Right to Education legislation enacted in 2009.

This is a semi-ethnographic study of three schools that were closed in a marginal community in Santiago, Chile. The school closing process was violent with many social and psychological negative consequences for guardians and students. The guardians of the students of these schools decided to take over the schools and fight against the local public educational administrator in order to reopen them, and after 7 months of persistent resistance they succeeded. This case of community resistance illustrates how the right to education goes beyond educational access, and it also involves community heritage, educational resources, and quality of teachers. The resistance of these parents to the school closing process is relevant to question how the right to education has been framed in the Chilean Constitution, and it also indicates gaps in the financial and administration policies to guarantee this right.

Mushrooming of privatisation which one witnesses at all levels in education aggravates marginalisation and exclusion. It has a crippling effect on the principle of equality of opportunity in education, which is a fundamental principle established by almost all international human rights conventions. Instead of supplementing education, private providers are supplanting it. Rather than controlling this phenomenon, governments even provide subsidy to private providers. There is widespread concern with the negative effects of privatisation in education in scholarly writings by intellectual community, civil society organisations and international organisations. Every child is entitled to education free of cost as an inalienable right, and access to education should not be based on capacity to pay fees which often are exorbitant. This also puts in jeopardy the principles of social justice and equity, which are key pillars of the United Nations system. Safeguarding education as a public good and fostering its humanist mission is of paramount importance. Under no circumstances education should be allowed to be mercantalised. States have the obligation to ensure that when education is provided by non-State entities, the principles and norms underlying right to education are respected, and education is not allowed to be reduced to business. They have the obligation to regulate and control all private providers in education and protect public interest in education. Abusive practices by private providers denote the failure of States to adequately monitor and regulate privatised education. This calls for strengthening human rights mechanisms to effectively address and sanction all abusive practices. In this, governments can be inspired by numerous decisions by courts and emerging jurisprudence.

The Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE) Act 2009 came into force in 2010 (Article 21A of the Indian Constitution), making the ‘right to education’ a fundamental right for children between 6 and 14 years of age a reality. To ensure the implementation of the Act, the parliament gave timelines to the government to execute all its provisions (in terms of infrastructure etc. till March 2013 and for regularising and training all teachers till March 2015). Despite multiple limitations, the civil society welcomed this long-awaited right and converged collectively, becoming a strong voice demanding the right to education in its true spirit. Apart from strongly lobbying for its implementation, it worked overtime to take this right to the people, generating awareness about the justiciability of the Act. Ten thousand grass-roots organisations, activists, educationists and teacher’s associations came together and formed the ‘Right to Education (RTE) Forum’ to collectively take forth their efforts to the people across the country. The RTE Forum started mass awareness campaigns, advocacy and stocktaking conventions (of the implementation of the RTE Act), both at national and State levels, along with generating its own report on the status of implementation of the Act. Presently, the RTE Forum is working across 18 states. The status reports prepared by the Forum highlight the gaps in implementation, loopholes and challenges, which are shared with the concerned officials from time to time. This article is based on the fourth-year status report of the RTE Forum, which was presented in the 4th Stocktaking Convention held in Delhi in March 2014, reviewing the status of implementation of the Act one year post the first deadline. The report highlights the apathy and the casual approach of the State towards its commitment of ensuring the right to education for the children. Unfortunately, only 10 per cent schools in the country are compliant with all the norms of the RTE Act.

This article describes the strategies employed by caregivers in accessing the right to education for their children with disabilities in Orange Farm, Gauteng. Children with disabilities are one of South Africa’s most vulnerable population groups. Despite enabling legal and policy reform, children with disabilities face unconstitutional attitudinal and environmental barriers to accessing the nonprogressive right to a basic education. This case study examines the caregivers’ self-efficacy, agency and the opportunity structures within which they are operating using an interdisciplinary theoretical framework and a qualitative methodology. The article will provide detailed examples of the agentic strategies that caregivers devise, in the face of hostile and unaccommodating bureaucratic institutions, disjointed referral mechanisms, discriminatory norms, stigmatising discourses and unjust power relations.

While commitment to a universal entitlement to education is highly desirable, some significant limitations have been identified in the right to education as currently expressed and implemented. This article assesses the contribution that the capabilities approach can make in this regard. While some proponents have suggested that capabilities should replace a rights framework, it is argued here that the elements of ‘threshold’ and ‘duty-bearer’ present in human rights are essential, and that a more promising approach is to combine the two frameworks. Three significant contributions that the capabilities approach can make in relation to Education for All are proposed: providing a fuller conception of the realization of the right to education; addressing the heterogeneity of learners; and guarding against an overly state-facing approach.

The right to education is an internationally recognized right. As part of the global movement for Education for All in the past two decades, the right to basic education has emerged in international law, and it carries international obligations—political and legal—on account of collective commitments by the international community for its realization. In monitoring the implementation of the right to education, emphasis is now laid on the right to basic education both in UNESCO and in the work of the United Nations human rights treaty bodies. The operational definition of basic education, elaborated by UNESCO in 2007, is a useful tool in this respect.

Much of the discussion on the Right to Education Act, 2009 has ignored the point that the passage of such a law has actually missed an excellent opportunity to address the systemic and fundamental problems of school education in India. Whether it is the question of access to all in a definite time frame, or improving quality with concrete provision of funds, taking education out of the current state of persistent underfunding despite the longstanding commitment to provide 6 percent of the GDP for education, it failed to meet the vision behind the Constitutional amendment that made education a fundamental right in Article 21A. Besides, this law perpetuates the multi-layer discriminating school system in India and reduces the notion of education to functional literacy, excluding a vast number of children in the age group of 0 to 5 at the pre-primary level and 16 to 18 in the secondary level from the ambit of universal and compulsory education. In fact, several of the measures mentioned in the Act may be devices to distract attention from the systemic problems facing school education.

Right to education, which is an integral part of UNESCO's constitutional mission of ensuring “full and equal opportunities for education for all,” is at the core of the Education for All process. While reforming education polices as part of this process, many countries have modernized and developed national legislation, often with technical assistance provided by UNESCO. As a strategic objective of Education for All, doing so strengthens foundations of the right to education in national legal systems. It brings to light the fundamental principle of the equality of educational opportunities, enshrined in UNESCO's Convention Against Discrimination in Education, a key pillar of Education for All.

This article details the emergence of Palestinian universities in the 1970s in the conditions of Israeli occupation. Palestinian universities grew during the first intifada in 1986. An outline of the present controls on and around these universities is given – controls that are contrary to academic freedom and the basic right to education. Israeli actions involve arrests, violence, detention and death. In these conditions, however, academic culture still flourishes. Universities have become centres of resistance. The article details the arrest and imprisonment of several academics. Reports of routine violence only emerge when European and American academics visit Palestinian universities. This article thus urges more and more exchange visits with a view to the full details of Israel's occupation being brought out in the international community of academics.

The paper critically reviews the rise and use of the ‘rights-based approach’ in ensuring entitlements of citizens vis-à-vis education, both internationally and in the context of the recently passed 93rd ammendment to the Indian Constitution which has given citizens the fundamental right to education. Reflecting on, policy shifts in Indian education such as decentralisation, and the characteristic of education itself as a ‘social’ and ‘political’ good, questions are raised about the prospects of a ‘rights-based approach’ in education.

In July 2001, the Irish Supreme Court decided that the right to a free primary education as contained in the Irish Constitution could not be extended to a 23-year-old autistic man, Jamie Sinnott. Much of the Supreme Court judgment is an exercise in statutory interpretation. The Court considered the meaning of both ‘primary’ and ‘education’ in the context in which it appeared in the Constitution – that of the rights of parents regarding the education of their children. Whilst it was happy to find that the type of on-going care and support required by Jamie Sinnott could be classified as education, nevertheless, the majority of the Irish Supreme Court limited the meaning of ‘primary’ education to that required by children and thereby excluding the care and support, which it recognised as ‘education’, required by profoundly handicapped adults. The impact of the Court's exercise in statutory interpretation is that, in Ireland, the right to free primary education is to be defined with regard to age and not needs. This paper examines the decision of the Irish Supreme Court against the background of the general right to education as provided for in international human rights law in an effort to ascertain the extent to which the Supreme Court decision, as it reflects Irish domestic law regarding the provision of free primary education, correlates with Ireland's international human rights obligations. In so doing, it will reveal the limited extent to which the rights of disabled person have been ‘integrated’ into the general right to education. To that end, Part 1 of this article will focus upon the Sinnott Case as it provides an effective summary of domestic law regarding primary education as contained in the Constitution, statute and case law as well as being the benchmark for the rights of disabled persons to education in Ireland. Part 2 will consider the provisions of international human rights law regarding that pertain to the rights of disabled persons. Part 3 will consider the right to education as provided for in international human rights treaties by comparing the provisions regarding the general right to education, provisions regarding primary education, and provisions regarding persons with disabilities. Part 4 concludes this article by drawing together the right to education and the rights of disabled individuals in an analysis of language and interpretation in an effort to determine the extent to which the rights of individuals, such as Jamie Sinnott are protected by both national and international law.

Much of the research and material published on the extended school year (ESY) to date has failed to provide comprehensive and accurate information on determining eligibility and the need for ESY services for children with disabilities. Eligibility for ESY can be based on several criteria, including individual need, nature and severity of the disability, educational benefit, regression and recoupment, self-sufficiency and independence, and failing to meet short-term goals and objectives. An examination of the ESY case law history reveals that it is difficult to determine “judicially manageable standards” for the various categories of eligibility. Therefore, decisions regarding ESY are based on an assimilation of criteria, particularly when considering ESY for children with severe disabilities. This article provides a thorough (exhaustive) review of the legal issues, including statutory and case law, and practical guidelines that will assist educators in their efforts to comply with federal statutes.

The issue of educability, or whether or not severely handicapped persons have a right to education or can benefit from it, is examined from a legal perspective. The analysis begins with a descripti...

This is the publisher's version, which is also available electronically from http://www.jstor.org/stable/42741904.

Values rather than science are often unrecognized as an impetus for policy development; a reasonable role of science is to determine how the intent of policy can best be realized. In recent years, the policy of educating all handicapped students has been reevaluated primarily because of two factors: (a) costs associated with providing educational services and (b) disagreement among professionals concerning whether all handicapped students can benefit from an education. A review of the educability litigation reaffirms that equal educational opportunity is still valued, and education can be defined broadly. Rather than questioning the value of equal educational opportunity, we suggest that research and curriculum development should focus on three areas: First, apply the criteria of educational validity (Voeltz & Evans, 1983) to demonstrate that education is appropriate; second, investigate student variance in learning associated with specific student characteristics and interventions; and third, evaluate valid curricular approaches for efficiency and cost-effectiveness.