Primary education is an investment with no immediate return and is part of public law. Public investment yields economic returns with much delay, and then only in combination with other assets. Moreover, education is not only about the transmission of knowledge and skills. Education is a public good because it represents the most widespread form of institutionalized socialization of children. Children can be deprived of schooling but they nonetheless learn out of school, especially about their ‘rights-lessness”.
Children cannot wait to grow, hence their prioritized right to education. The damage of denied education while they are growing up is difficult, if not impossible, to remedy retroactively. Education constitutes one of the few globally accepted duties for children because it is compulsory. Children are given the legal right to education because they lack a political voice that would enable them to secure their education through the political process.
Primary education ought to be free for children because they cannot pay for themselves nor should they. This is reinforced by the corollary prohibition of child labour and the complementary principle which links school-leaving age with the minimum age for employment.
Human rights law shares with global poverty reduction strategies the experience that poverty is a key barrier to universalizing education. In primary education, the key governmental obligation is that of result. Where direct, indirect and opportunity costs preclude access to education, the government has to ensure that they are gradually eliminated. The prerequisite is to identify these costs and, then, develop a strategy for their elimination.
The key to a changed global design of education is an affirmation that education is a human right and a public responsibility. This report aims to facilitate such a change.
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