Inicio Quiénes somos Portada Cuadernos de Propuestas Dossiers y Documentos Videos Base documental Enlaces Contacto Educación universal, plural y de calidad, y educación ciudadana
The State of the Right to Education Worldwide: Free or Fee
Temas asociados: Derechos ¤ Educación ¤ Perspectivas y escenarios ¤ Servicios públicos
Traducciones: français . Español .
The laws, policies and practices in 170 individual countries have been examined to document whether the right to education is recognized or denied, to discern why this is so, and to highlight the impact of the model that was chosen or imposed. The Nordic model, where education is a free public service, stands out in opposition to access to education dependent on the ability to pay its cost, which has become a global norm. This free or for-fee dichotomy guides this report.
Preventing poor students from studying at the university is bad enough, but forcing primary-school children to work because they are too poor to pay for nominally free public school is intolerable. It is much too cruel as a public policy and contrary to common sense as a development strategy. To add insult to injury, the rhetoric on the right to education continues unchanged.
International resolutions, declarations and recommendations are churned out by one part of ‘the international community’ while another part makes its denial inevitable by forcing governments to levy charges.
Globally, drivers of education are a bank (which does not advocate free public services because by definition they do not make money) and governments of countries that are exporting their education services (which would lose billions if education became a free public service). The global division of labor keeps human rights in their place, as sugar-coating for the bitter pill of economic exclusion.
