Human Rights Council discusses report on education

VERNOR MUNOZ VILLALOBOS, Special Rapporteur on the right to education, submitted his report on the activities undertaken during 2005-2006. By the end of 2005, the Special Rapporteur considered it very important to contribute to the debate on the advancement attained on the realization of the right to education of girls’ education, in view of the first assessment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs aimed at the elimination of the gender disparity in primary education, and constituted an important reference point to achieving universal primary education by 2015. The Special Rapporteur said that States had to increase their efforts to eliminate attitudes and discriminatory stereotypes, as well as customs and persistent practices that had relegated women to an inferior position. Education was key to the elimination of these practices. In consequence, girls’ education was fundamental to the development of responsible citizens, who would also respect all human rights. Girl’s education was about equality and therefore also dealt with a just, solidarity-based, egalitarian and peaceful society.

It was worrisome to note that no State had been able to eliminate the gender gap comprising all aspects of social life. This meant that gender inequality was not the mechanical result of poverty, as it had been amply documented in North America and in Europe, where inequality persisted in the area of access and the remaining obstacles continued to negatively affect the education of girls and their life opportunities. Difficulties encountered by girls and adolescents were many times aggravated by other kinds of exclusions related to disabilities, ethnic or geographic origin, religious belief or the absence of it. Child work had worse consequences on the education of girls because they had to undergo related forms of aggression and exclusion associated with domestic work. Even though poverty was not the only factor limiting the autonomy of women, poverty when considered in association with marriage and early maternity, it affected formal education of adolescents, as they practically lacked work opportunities except for domestic work and child rearing.

With reference to his visit to Botswana, the Special Rapporteur stated that education has been a dominant priority in the development of the country since independence, and that the Government had achieved incredible progress towards the general schooling of the population. Botswana had reached almost universal primary education and had made important progress towards gender equality. Nevertheless, Botswana faced challenges in different key areas related to the realization of the right to education.
The present report focused on girls’ right to education. In view of the first assessment of the Millennium Development Goals, the Special Rapporteur wished to focus on Goals 2 and 3, on universal primary education and gender equality. The Special Rapporteur addressed the socio-cultural context of gender discrimination by defining the concept of patriarchalism, which underpinned discriminatory behaviours. He denounced the negative impact on education, and especially on girls’ education, of the persistent consideration of education as being a service rather than a human right and insisted on the importance of ensuring not only girls’ access to school but also their completion of the education cycle. The report identified obstacles to education for girls, such as early marriages and pregnancies, child labour (especially domestic work) and armed conflicts.

The Special Rapporteur drew attention to aggravating factors and highlighted the key role of human rights education and its concrete implementation at the classroom level to combat gender discrimination and stereotypes. The report also summarized replies received to the questionnaire sent to different stakeholders to solicit information on the realization of the right to education for girls, extracting major trends from the replies and validating his findings. The report provided a set of recommendations based on the four elements identified as components of the right to education, namely, availability, accessibility, acceptability and adaptability.