Education | | Movimento Globale per i Diritti dell’Infanzia

Every child has the right to a high quality education, enabling them to develop physical and mental capacities to their full potential.

Art. 28 and 29
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

Education is an essential right for every child to be able to plan his or her future. In fact, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child envisages the right of the child to education and, in particular, that States, in order to guarantee the exercise of this right, make primary education compulsory and free for all, encourage the organisation of various forms of secondary education and guarantee access to higher education for all by all appropriate means, according to the capacities of each person under the age of 18. Furthermore, states are called upon to take measures to promote regular school attendance and a decrease in school drop-out rates.

The ’right to learn’, as envisaged in Articles 28 and 29 of the CRC, can be defined as education at three hundred and sixty degrees since it has the following purposes:
(a) the development of the personality as well as the development of mental and physical faculties and aptitudes, in all their potentiality;
(b) the promotion of respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms and the principles enshrined in the UN Charter;
(c) the promotion of respect for one’s parents, identity, language and cultural values, as well as for cultures other than one’s own
(d) preparing boys and girls to take on the responsibilities of life in a free society, in a spirit of understanding, peace, tolerance, gender equality and friendship among all peoples and ethnic, national and religious groups and people of indigenous origin
(e) respect for the natural environment.

Enormous steps have been taken towards the realisation of this right. Today, 1 billion minors have access to education. This is the highest number in history: humanity has never seen so many boys and girls have access to education.

Yet, access to quality education is still a distant goal for many. The lack of qualified teachers, adequate learning materials, makeshift classrooms and poor sanitation facilities make learning very difficult for some children. In some contexts, boys and girls arrive at school too hungry, sick, fatigued by work or household chores to benefit from school lessons. (UNICEF)

Socio-economic conditions strongly influence many children’s chances of attending school even at primary level, with 1 in 4 children in the poorest countries not having access to it. Inequalities and gender roles aggravate the situation in many countries. In 2030 there will still be 110 million girls who will not be able to go to school because they are forced to get married, because they become pregnant, because there is conflict in their country and the roads are unsafe, because their family is very poor and prefers to invest in the education of their siblings, or because they are relegated to the domestic sphere to take care of the home and family members.

There are situations where girls and young women are explicitly forbidden to sit at school desks. One of the first decrees issued by the Taliban in Afghanistan, after the capture of Kabul in August 2021, was the ban on girls over the age of 12 from attending school, thus nullifying the possibilities of access to higher education for the youngest and, forcing those who were already studying, to discontinue the course. Girls who were attending university were allowed to continue to do so, albeit with severe restrictions: separate courses from those attended by their male peers and a ban on enrolling in faculties such as engineering and economics. The cold shower came in December 2022, when the Taliban government also closed the doors of universities to girls ’until further notice’. (Terres des Hommes report)

An equitable school system helps build the prosperity of entire societies. For girls, school attendance certainly reduces the incidence of gender-based violence and harmful practices such as early marriage and female genital mutilation. For boys, education that counteracts gender stereotypes means protection: in many countries, masculinity norms can fuel school drop-outs, child labour, recruitment into armed groups and violence. (UNICEF)

An adequate and accessible education system is essential for the development of every person and contributes to building the prosperity of entire societies.