EDUCATION

Resolution drafters need to study harder

The draft resolution circulated among delegations last week fails to follow up on the SR’s recommendations

MANOJ MITTA

ON the face of it, Portugal's proposed resolution on the right to education seems unexceptionable. But closer scrutiny reveals that, despite all its homilies and rousing rhetoric, the draft resolution does precious little to help fulfil the UN Millennium Declaration's goal of attaining universal primary education by 2015. It is indeed disappointing that the five-page draft resolution circulated last week among the delegations fails to follow up meaningfully on the recommendations made by the Special Rapporteur on education, Katarina Tomasevski.

This lapse is unacceptable given that the world has already suffered the ignominy of being nowhere close to meeting the 2000 deadline set with much hope and fanfare a decade earlier at a UN conference in Jomtien (Thailand). 

The deadline was since extended to 2015 at the World Education Forum held in Dakar (Senegal) in April 2000. The need of the hour is to spare no effort to implement the Dakar Framework for Action. As Tomasevski put it, ''It has not been possible to take any action in response to this betrayal because no mechanism had been provided to hold to account those who had formulated this pledge to deliver. There was no substantial improvement in 2000. The final document adopted in Dakar once again set noble objectives but avoided mentioning the means necessary to achieve them as well as the mechanisms necessary to address their non-achievement.''

Portugal's draft resolution shares the failings of the Dakar document: a surfeit of noble objectives but no attempt to provide a mechanism to enforce the various measures needing to be taken around the world to meet the 2015 deadline. The rather anaemic draft suggests that Portugal is not too bothered about the fact that no serious effort has been mounted to make the Dakar vision a reality. The compromises it made in leaving out the tough steps that are called for gives the impression that Portugal has come up with the resolution not so much out of concern over the persistence of illiteracy as out of a desire to get credit for sponsoring a resolution on the subject. True, the draft does incorporate elements from Tomasevski's report. For instance, borrowing language from one of her reports, the resolution calls upon all states to adopt the necessary measures ''to close the gap between the school-leaving age and the minimum age for employment.''

In some cases, it even seems to go beyond Tomasevski's recommendations. Take the laudable clause urging states to use innovative approaches such as providing a minimum monthly income to the family of poor children attending school on a regular basis or free meals for school-going children. But any such pious sentiments are condemned to remain on paper because it lacks recommendations for accountability mechanisms. More importantly, the draft fails to lend support in any substantive manner to Tomasevski in the battle she has been waging so valiantly against all odds.   

Here's a quick take on the various omissions and commissions in Portugal's draft which undermine its efficacy:

·           Many states recognise the right to education but do not acknowledge the corresponding governmental obligation to secure that primary education is available to all school-age children, compulsorily and free of charge. The resolution does not dare bell the cat. While it provides for  free education at the primary level, it skirts the all-important issue of casting an obligation on the states to do so.

·           Though the World Bank claims to be the "the single largest source of finance for education," it has failed to give due priority to primary education, which has received barely 30 per cent of education lending. Yet, the resolution makes no comment on the World Bank's education strategy nor on its role in the introduction of school fees in Africa in the 1980s. 

·           The World Bank has espoused human rights criteria for school textbooks. "It is expected that book provision programmes financed by the Bank subscribe to the principles expressed in the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Bank reserves the right to withdraw funding for books which can be shown to breach some provisions of that declaration." Endorsing this World Bank policy, Tomasevski highlighted controversies that school textbooks raise for instigating, for instance, xenophobia as a mode of state-building.

In her latest report, the Special Rapporteur therefore recommended that "the process of preparing, using and assessing school textbooks be subsumed under the rule of law." Portugal nevertheless did not think it worthwhile to address the serious issue raised by textbooks.

·           One of the key aspects of the 2001 report was Tomasevski's exhortation to the World Bank to review its approach to education using human rights as the yardstick. She recommended "an internal review of all bank lending operations in order to identify departures from international legal requirements and undertake corrective action." As the first step, she suggested that an in-house review be carried out to check countries from charging fees for primary education. Subsequently, the World Bank submitted a draft study on school fees in June 2002 confirming their "detrimental impact" on the rule of law. Portugal did not deem it necessary to redress this situation.

·           The draft resolution has glossed over the growing impact of the trade law on the human rights law ever since education came under the ambit of the 1994 General Agreement of Trade in Services (GATS). Though the number of commitments on education received from various countries by the World Trade Organisation is the lowest of all service sectors, the Special Rapporteur noted that this development has established education as an internationally traded service, thereby eroding the human rights concept of primary education as a free public service. As she put it, "The question is whether we are heading towards progressive liberalisation of trade in educational services or progressive realisation of the right to education."

If the CHR adopts Portugal's draft without departing much from its current form it will only add to the growing number of redundant resolutions.

Given its critical importance for the state of human rights in the world, the mission to provide education to all deserves better support from the CHR.