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EDUCATION A fundamental global priority

Emmanuel W. Kofa | Master of Legal Studies

Introduction Basic research and excellent academic presentation will always be the work of contemporary scholars as it enables them to properly critique and possibly analyzed past and present issues of complexity and thus, provide amicable solutions to critical issues to save the incoming generations. When people opt for change, it is obvious that such change is aimed at correcting the wrongs of the past. In ancient past, generation upon generation did not experience technological skill and advancement as modern epoch does. This is due to the level of advance education we have today.

According to Wikipedia, Education is however the process of facilitating learning, or the acquisition of knowledge, skills values, beliefs, and habits. Educational methods include teaching, training, storytelling, discussion and directed research. Education frequently takes place under the guidance of educators, however learners can also educate themselves. Education can take place in formal or informal settings and any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts may be considered educational. A right to education has been recognized by some governments and the United Nations. In most regions, education is compulsory up to a certain age. There is a movement for education reform, and in particular for evidencebased education with global initiatives aimed at achieving the Sustainable Development Goal 4, which promotes quality education for all. Education began in prehistory, as adults trained the young in the knowledge and skills deemed necessary in their society. In pre-literate societies, this was achieved orally and through imitation. Story-telling passed knowledge, values, and skills from one generation to the next. As cultures began to extend their knowledge beyond skills that could be readily learned through imitation, formal education developed. Schools existed in Egypt at the time of the Middle Kingdom.

Plato founded the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in Europe. The city of Alexandria in Egypt, established in 330 BCE, became the successor to Athens as the intellectual cradle of Ancient Greece. There, the great Library of Alexandria was built in the 3rd century BCE. European civilizations suffered a collapse of literacy and organization following the fall of Rome in CE 476.

In China, Confucius (551–479 BCE), of the State of Lu, was the country’s most influential ancient philosopher, whose educational outlook continues to influence the societies of China and neighboring Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. Confucius gathered disciples and searched in vain for a ruler who would adopt his ideals for good governance, but his Analects were written down by followers and have continued to influence education in East Asia into the modern era. The Aztecs also had a welldeveloped theory about education, which has an equivalent word in Nahuatl called tlacahuapahualiztli. It means “the art of raising or educating a person”, or “the art of strengthening or bringing up men”. This was a broad conceptualization of education, which prescribed that it begins at home, supported by formal schooling, and reinforced by community living. Historians cite that formal education was mandatory for everyone regardless of social class and gender. There was also the word neixtlamachiliztli, which means “the act of giving wisdom to the face”. In essence, these concepts underscore a complex set of educational practices, which was oriented towards communicating to the next generation the experience and intellectual heritage of the past for the purpose of individual development and his integration into the community.

In the quest to foster and direct the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms toward individual integration into the community, a means to promote national and global coherence, the document on the Universal Declaration of Human right was adopted on Friday, December 10, 1948 in Paris, France. This which means all men are equal and must have freedom to exercise their inherent and inalienable rights. The right to live, to peace including the human right to education.

Upon this backdropped, this article derives from a more concern with the contemporary global situation of education as a human right that should be considered a fundamental global priority. It places major emphasis on the human right to education, a means to derive a healthy planet as enshrined in the charter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It delves into the past only because otherwise, it would be highly impossible to understand how the present came into being and what the trends are like for the near future. In the search for an understanding of what is education and what makes it a fundamental human right, the limits of enquiry had to be fixed as far back at the 3rd century BCE on the one hand, and the twenty first century on the other hand.

Background According to Wikipedia, Education is however the process of facilitating learning, or the acquisition of knowledge, skills, values, beliefs, and habits. Educational methods include teaching, training, storytelling, discussion and directed research. Education frequently takes place under the guidance of educators, however learners can also educate themselves. Education can take place in formal or informal settings and any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts may be considered educational. A right to education has been recognized by some governments and the United Nations. In most regions, education is compulsory up to a certain age. There is a movement for education reform, and in particular for evidence-based education with global initiatives aimed at achieving the Sustainable Development Goal 4, which promotes quality education for all.

Education began in prehistory, as adults trained the young in the knowledge and skills deemed necessary in their society. In pre-literate societies, this was achieved orally and through imitation. Story-telling passed knowledge, values, and skills from one generation to the next. As cultures began to extend their knowledge beyond skills that could be readily learned through imitation, formal education developed. Schools existed in Egypt at the time of the Middle Kingdom.

Plato founded the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in Europe. The city of Alexandria in Egypt, established in 330 BCE, became the successor to Athens as the intellectual cradle of Ancient Greece. There, the great Library of Alexandria was built in the 3rd century BCE. European civilizations suffered a collapse of literacy and organization following the fall of Rome in CE 476.

In China, Confucius (551–479 BCE), of the State of Lu, was the country’s most influential ancient philosopher, whose educational outlook continues to influence the societies of China and neighboring Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. Confucius gathered disciples and searched in vain for a ruler who would adopt his ideals for good governance, but his Analects were written down by followers and have continued to influence education in East Asia into the modern era.

After the Fall of Rome, the Catholic Church became the sole preserver of literate scholarship in Western Europe. The church established cathedral schools in the Early Middle Ages as centres of advanced education. Some of these establishments ultimately evolved into medieval universities and forebears of many of Europe’s modern universities. During the High Middle Ages, Chartres Cathedral operated the famous and influential Chartres Cathedral School. The medieval universities of Western Christendom were well-integrated across all of Western Europe, encouraged freedom of inquiry, and produced a great variety of fine scholars and natural philosophers, including Thomas Aquinas of the University of Naples, Robert Grosseteste of the University of Oxford, an early expositor of a systematic method of scientific experimentation, and Saint Albert the Great, a pioneer of biological field research. Founded in 1088, the University of Bologne is considered the first, and the oldest continually operating university. Elsewhere during the Middle Ages, Islamic science and mathematics flourished under the Islamic caliphate which was established across the Middle East, extending from the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Indus in the east and to the Almoravid Dynasty and Mali Empire in the south. In most countries today, full-time education, whether at school or otherwise, is compulsory for all children up to a certain age. Due to this the proliferation of compulsory education, combined with population growth, UNESCO has calculated that in the next 30 years more people will receive formal education than in all of human history thus far.

Formal education occurs in a structured environment whose explicit purpose is teaching students. Usually, formal education takes place in a school environment with classrooms of multiple students learning together with a trained, certified teacher of the subject. The International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) was created by UNESCO as a statistical base to compare education systems. In 1997, it defined 7 levels of education and 25 fields, though the fields were later separated out to form a different project. Modern educational program begins from the early childhood level, primary, secondary and higher education as well as vocational education1.

Content of the right to education Indeed, the right to education encompasses both entitlements and freedoms, including the following: • Right to free and compulsory primary education. • Right to available and accessible secondary education (including technical and vocational education and training), made progressively free. • Right to equal access to higher education on the basis of capacity made progressively free. • Right to fundamental education for those who have not received or completed primary education. • Right to quality education both in public and private schools. • Freedom of parents to choose schools for their children which are in conformity with their religious and moral convictions. • Freedom of individuals and bodies to establish and direct education institutions in conformity with minimum standards established by the state. • Academic freedom of teachers and students2. There were 4As developed by the first UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education, and adopted by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in its General Comment 13 on the right to education (1999, para.6). These 4As indicate that education should be available, accessible, acceptable and adaptable. To be a meaningful right, education in all its forms and at all levels shall exhibit these interrelated and essential features:

Available– Education is free and there is adequate infrastructure and trained teachers able to support the delivery of education. Accessible– The education system is non-discriminatory and accessible to all, and positive steps are taken to include the most marginalized. Acceptable– The content of education is relevant, nondiscriminatory and culturally appropriate, and of quality; schools are safe, and teachers are professional. Adaptable– Education evolves with the changing needs of society and challenges inequalities, such as gender discrimination; education adapts to suit locally specific needs and contexts Obligation of states to education as a human right: States are therefore under obligations to respect, protect, and fulfil this right. To respect means to refrain from interfering with the enjoyment of the right (e.g., the state must respect the liberty of parents to choose schools for their children. To protect means to prevent others from interfering with the enjoyment of the right usually through regulation and legal guarantees (e.g., the state must ensure that third parties, including parents, do not prevent girls from going to school). To fulfil means to adopt appropriate measures towards the full realization of the right to education (e.g., the state must take positive measures to ensure that education is culturally appropriate for minorities and indigenous peoples, and of good quality for all). However, no matter how limited resources are, all states have immediate obligations to implement the following aspects of right to education: 1. Ensure minimum core obligations to meet the essential levels of the right to education, which includes prohibiting discrimination in access to and in education, ensuring free and compulsory primary education for all, respecting the liberty of parents to choose schools for their children other than those established by public authorities, protecting the liberty of individuals and bodies to establish and direct educational institutions. 2. Take appropriate steps towards the full realization of the right to education to the maximum of its available resources. A lack of resources cannot justify inaction or indefinite postponement of measures to implement the right to education. States must demonstrate they are making every effort to improve the enjoyment of the right to education, even when resources are scarce. 3. Not take retrogressive measures. This means that the state should not take backwards steps or adopt measures that will repeal existing guarantees of the right to education. For instance, introducing school fees in secondary education when it had formerly been free of charge would constitute a retrogressive measure4.

Education is not a privilege. Human Rights Day is observed on December 10 of each year in recognition of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which set outs fundamental human rights, including education, to be universally protected. It was on Friday, December 10, 1948 that the United Nations General Assembly adopted the declaration that proclaimed the inalienable rights which everyone is inherently entitled to as a human being, regardless of race, religion, sex, language, political opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status5. Referencing the above declaration that seems to be one of the most translated documents in the world —available in more than 500 language—, means education is a human right and not a privilege. Education as a human right means: • The right to education is legally guaranteed for all without any discrimination. • States have the obligation to protect, respect, and fulfil the right to education. • There are ways to hold states accountable for violations or deprivations of the right to education.

Education as a human right Today, human rights are inherent to all human beings, regardless of nationality, sex, national or ethnic origin, color, religion, language, or any other status. They cannot be given or taken away. Human rights are the foundation for freedom, justice and peace in the world. They are formally and universally recognized by all countries in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (1948, UDHR). Since the adoption of the UDHR, many treaties have been adopted by states to reaffirm and guarantee these rights legally. International human rights law sets out the obligations of states to respect, protect, and fulfil human rights for all. These obligations impose specific duties upon states, regardless of their political, economic, and cultural systems. All human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent, and interrelated (Vienna Declaration and Program of Action, 1993, para. 5). Equality and nondiscrimination are foundational and cross-cutting principles in international human rights law. This means that all human rights apply to everyone.

Education is paramount to the existence of all men. This is why in the wisdom of the crafters of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, they indicated in that sacred document as in article 26, section one to three that: 1. Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit. 2. Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace. 3. Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

This simply supports the fact that Education is considered a fundamental human right because it allows individuals to exercise all their rights especially the right to read, write, comprehend and confront issues of complexity thereby deriving amicable solutions. Being illiterate means not being able to find directions to take a bus, understand the label on a medication bottle, help your child with homework, read programs of political candidates and cast an informed vote etc., but being educated gives the creates the ambiance to positively attend or affect these duties. A basic education is important to ensure that all individuals are aware of their rights. Without an education it is less likely to get a good-paying job and decent housing, participate in the democratic process or value education for future generations. There is evidence that educated citizens care more about the environment, they are more tolerant of others who are not like them, and are more likely to strive for gender equality. In furtherance, education is therefore a fundamental human right because: > It is important in the creation of any democratic society. As Franklin D. Roosevelt puts it that, “Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.” People need a good education if they want a good democracy. > It is needed to make a society geopolitically stable. Without a proper educational system available to everyone, terrorists could use free education as a way to radicalize people. In other words, geopolitical stability is one of education’s most powerful effects on society. > It leads to economic prosperity in the global marketplace. This means that, one of the most important effects education has on society is giving the people who live in a society the skills they need to compete in the global marketplace, and the skills they need to produce technological goods that can be sold on the open market. That is why the Athenian Philosopher, Socrates best expressed this idea when he stated that: “Prefer knowledge to wealth, for the one is transitory, the other perpetual.” > It gives people the knowledge they need to elect capable leaders. Plato was never wronged when he stated that, “In politics we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state. When we are ill… we do not ask for the handsomest physician, or the most eloquent one.” Education helps the members of society see through the manipulations used by politicians to get votes so that the members of the society can vote for the leader who is best able to run the society. > It helps promote tolerance in a society and helps reduce common conflicts between diverse populations in an urban setting. In the words of Helen Keller “The highest result of education is tolerance.” Educating members of society about other people who either live in the society or its neighboring states have the power to reduce many conflicts.

> It has the propensity to help societies, and the world in general, change for the better. In the wisdom of the greatest African freedom fighter Nelson Mandela, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. Malcolm X says that: “Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.” Education is a powerful tool that can be used to make the world a better place to live in. > It helps members in a society learn from the mistakes of the past. That was the reason for which the ancient Greek Philosopher Plato has stated that geopolitical stability cannot be created by forming a democratic government; if the government is established by force or because of overthrowing an old regime, the new government could transform from a government that encourages peace and democracy into a new government that uses force to maintain power. > It reduces violence and crime in societies. Teaching people to read has been shown to prevent people from engaging in crime. In fact, the Melissa Institute for Violence Prevention and Treatment is a charity group that uses education to combat violence and crime. > It creates hope for the future. In reality, providing people the hope that they can improve their lot in life is one of the more powerful effects education has on a society. As postulated by the former United States President, John F. Kennedy when he best expressed the power of a good education system thereby saying, “Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation.” These words of John F. Kennedy about America apply to every society on Earth today. > It closes the gender gap. For many years, women were not allowed to attend school or obtain an education. Because of this, there is a large gender gap, which only creates further problems. Women who gain an education are working toward minimizing the gap to further the abilities of women around the world. An education often prevents young girls from being married off into a potentially limiting, harmful situation. Additionally, women with an education are able to make better, informed decisions for themselves. They often wait longer to have children than those who do not have an education. This ensures that the woman is ready to have children, rather than just being pressured into it by her husband or society. Women with an education have on average three children, while uneducated women have on average seven children to ten children from my country’s (Liberia) perspective6.

Education should be considered a fundamental global priority Both individuals and society benefit from the right to education. It is fundamental for human, social, and economic development and a key element to achieving lasting peace and sustainable development. It is a powerful tool in developing the full potential of everyone and ensuring human dignity, and in promoting individual and collective wellbeing. It is therefore an empowerment right that lifts marginalized groups out of poverty. It is an indispensable means of realizing other rights as it contributes to the full development of the human personality7.

Recommendation: To maintain the continuous flow of education as a fundamental human right, and to further realize and promote the right to education, I am pleased to posit the following recommendations to national and world governing bodies. That: • National and international partners or leaders should persist on raising awareness on the right to education. If individuals know their rights they are empowered to claim them. • Educators world-wide, should advocate and campaign for the full implementation of the right to education, thereby holding the state accountable. • National and global leaders monitor the implementation of the right to education and report regularly on deprivations and violations. • National and global leaders seek remedies or consider serious measures against those who violate the right to education, a fundamental human right. • Women be greatly empowered as their male counterpart in obtaining educational opportunities. • The right to education should be frequently reaffirmed in other treaties covering specific groups (women and girls, persons with disabilities, migrants, refugees, Indigenous Peoples, etc.) and contexts (education during armed conflicts) as it has already been incorporated into various regional treaties and enshrined as a right in the vast majority of national constitutions. • Education becomes meaningfully affordable to all regardless of race, religion, sex, language, political opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. • The Declaration proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on Friday, 10 December 1948 (General Assembly resolution 217 A) as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations, be implemented to the fullest by all stakeholders clothed with the authority to disseminate the culture of education throughout the universe and to all men.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in its General Comment 13 on the right to education (1999, para.6) | Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights' General Comment 13 on the right to education (1999, para. 1). | History on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights-Wikipedia. | Human rights obligations: making education available, accessible, acceptable and adaptable (RTE, Katarina Tomaševski, 2001) | Human rights education. | https: www.right-to-education. org. | Index of education articles – Wikipedia index

Publications by Students: aiu.edu/StudentPublication.html

Working on feeling better

By Dr. Rosa Hilda Lora M. Advisor at AIU | rosa@aiu.edu

Feel better! Feel happy! These are expressions that are part of our life. Everybody wants to feel that way. We are witnessing a stage of our planet Earth that seems to be far from that “feeling good”. We have a pandemic that doesn’t seem to go away and will be with us for another year. Where is “feeling better”? Where is “feeling happy”? In order to feel happy the first thing is to have life and with it health. If we aren’t healthy we can’t do all the activities we would like. The first gift of existence is health. For health we have to have a balance between: who we are and the environment that surrounds us. We have to achieve a balance of who we are and the nutrients our body needs. We live in a society where what we need to exist physically we have to produce and buy.

Let’s continue with what we are. What we are continues with that producing and acquiring. For that production we have to know how to do something to sell it on the job market. Knowing how to do something implies studying to have an opportunity and acquire the goods we need. You have to pay for services such as: water, electricity, medical insurance or having the resources to pay when you need assistance of that nature. We live in a society we call organized and those activities make life. We also live on a planet that provides us with the resources to live. We think: but what has happened to the lives of human beings and to every being that lives with us? Yes, we say there is a pandemic; yes, we say that vaccines are already being developed but it seems that there is no solution to the situation. It seems that we carry a problem of living satisfied from before. It seems that reaching the goals for a satisfied life are getting further and further away. Everywhere, everyone is protesting. The States have been exceeded in the attention to the population. It is not seen: where or when, peace come back in this world. What is going on? It seems that it is not just the pandemic. We are living in a society where commerce is done at a faster speed every day and more products are also appearing. We know that life has stages and stages: life is in continuous change. We see that change grow; for periods it seems that we stop and then we feel that we are moving forward. There are stages in which it seems that we don’t do anything and there are others in which we put all our effort to achieve new goals. The objectives by periods refer to physical objects and by periods to personal development goals, such as acquiring more skills to ... or acquire knowledge in this or that area. It seems that we are at a stage in human history when there are many goods to buy. What is happening in our world? What is the relationship between that marketing career and feeling good in our lives? As human beings we have a tendency to seek the satisfaction of our needs; we do not remain calm and that they resolve themselves. There is an area of Psychology called Humanist that provides us with an explanation of what the life of human beings is in the search for its fulfillment. We have an American Psychologist, Abraham Maslow (New York 1908 - California 1970) who did good jobs in Humanistic Psychology.

Abraham Maslow PhD Philosophy: Cornell University Master Psychology (1931): University of Wisconsin PhD Psychology (1934): University of Wisconsin He worked with Edward Thorndike and Alfred Adler at Columbia University. According to Maslow the human being has a tendency towards the search for mental health. Maslow explains this process of the search for mental health and the realization of human beings with a model that is a pyramid.

With this model he explains his theory of satisfaction of needs and is called Maslow’s Pyramid of Needs. With an unsatisfied level you can’t reach the next level. We are born with the level of basic needs. The basic needs also have the function of giving rise to the highest. In the Maslow model, he explains that the satisfaction of the low level is what allows us to reach the next level. Physiological: feeding, rest Security: protection Social: affection, belonging Recognition: success, trust Self-actualization: creativity, spontaneity We are in the world of marketing, in the world of a pandemic, in a world in which many are very upset and in a world where States have been overtaken by the pandemic. If we approach Maslow’s theory we can know the following. Human beings seek mental health but now almost all governments bring us in that: Q We have more infected Q These 15 days we will have more severe confinement. Q We are going to get out of the pandemic because we already have vaccines —there are problems with vaccines. Q The economy in a year will be fine —every day there are more unemployed. Q Every day we are further away from satisfying our basic needs. Q When the pandemic wasn’t here, we had the marketing. Q You have to have this product.

Q You have to live in this area. The pyramid of our lives, for a long time, we have not been able to reach the highest level; every day they give us more elements to achieve it. Don’t let governments and marketing build the pyramid of realization of your life. Build your own pyramid so you can get where you want. Forget about the marketing and the governments because those are the levels they want to reach. Build your levels of satisfaction and be happy with them.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. Maslow, A. (2016). El hombre autorrealizado. Hacia una psicología del Ser. España: Kairos | Maslow, A. y otros. (2005). El Management según Maslow. Una visión Humanista para la Empresa de Hoy. España: Paidós

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