THE RIGHT TO EDUCATION

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 518, 27 May 1949, Page 7

THE RIGHT TO EDUCATION

-- ]T is not by coincidence that this article,

— -~ written by DR.

JAIME

TORRES

BODET

Director-General of UNESCO.

follows one

concerned with education in New Zealand. What Dr. Bodet has to say may serve to correct the facile assumption that a nation’s educational responsibilities lie solely within its own borders.

HEN the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights last December, the world’s response,, apart from the rejoicings of certain noble minds, was a general and regrettable attitude of scepticism or apathy. The distance that always separates the ideal from the reality brings disillusion and there were not a few who echoed the recurrent question: "What is there in this new. Declaration which was not contained in the Republican Manifestoes of the 18th Century?" or again "What guarantee have we that this list is anything more than a dusty catalogue of dead promises?" Such scepticism is easy. As though the rights which guarantee our lives and liberties as men and citizens to-day did not, one after the other, emerge from those earlier documents, judged in their day to be utopian, As though the universal character of the Declaration did not make it a fundamentally new statement. And as though it did not contain definitions unknown to all the texts preceding it, as well as ideas and affirmations truly revolutionary. The Articles on labour, protection against unemployment and on _ social security have been cited as examples of these innovations, and there are other such articles. I should like to read and analyse with you articles 26 and 27, which deal with education. "Everyone," declaré the United Nations, "has the right to education." Let us stop there for a moment. In some countries such a statement appears self-evident, but we must remember certain hard facts. At the present time, in the middle of the 20th Century, more than half of mankind is illiterate. There are countries where the proportion of illiterates is 60 or 70 per cent. and those are not the figures for Asia or Africa; where they often rise to 98 or 99 per cent. Been It is for that reason that no man worthy of the name, no man conscious of that solidarity of the human species which knows neither race nor frontiers, could, I think, read the rest of the article without a blush; "education shall be free, at least in so far as elementary and fundamenfal education are concerned. Elementary education shall be compulsory." ‘Those, of course, are words which have long been associated, and we repeat them so mechanically that we cease to see exactly what they mean. Is there not something bitterly ironical in gravely declaring that we must go to school, that school is compulsory, when half; the children of the world, because they have had the misfortune to be born in a "backward" or "devastated" country, have no schools, have no teachers, no books, no education? Fallow Field And each man, without much surprise even, goes on repeating what the national budgets teach him; that the most prosperous countries spend 80 much money, so much effort and intelligence on armaments and luxuries that not enough is left over for the schools,

What future does an age deserve which neglects its children? After all, society only exists as a group of separate individuals, and its worth is determined by the individual worth of its members. What harvest can be hoped for when half the field is left to lie fallow? This is to found the future on the most intol-_ erable of inequalities. Nor does the trouble end with primary teaching, which should never be more than the basis of a true and full education. Society has not discharged its obligations towards children when it has taught them to read and write and add up. Those children will not become men and women unless they can grow up to do a man’s job, train themselves for a freely chosen occupation and: develop their gifts and aptitudes to the highest point of excellence. It is obvious that by the pursuit of such a purpose we are working for peace and social progress alike; only by the discharge of his creative functions can the individual be effectively integrated within the com-

munity. Hence, as the Declaration of "Human Rights states, technical and vocational education must be made generally available. It is time that our civilisations realised their duty to furnish every child with the guidance and the tools which will secure for him his place among the builders of the future. But that again is only a stage on the road. These children and young people, to whom we look to create a better and more peaceful world than our own, have a right to more than the rudiments of knowledge and more even than the best of working tools.eThey need a culture. They long for their share in man’s spiritual inheritance) to experience in their own persons its growth and _ its changes, and.to work for its enrichment. That is a necessary condition if they are to be complete men and if the culture of their nation is to be a living reality. In our days, unfortunately, this culture appears to be the preserve of the -universities. It was not always so. No

doubt "higher education" has always existed as a privilege of the rich and a reward for the most gifted, and it used to be thought that only the study of the classics could make virtuous men and the best brains. And yet the mass of unlearned artisans, manual workers and peasants were not on that account without culture. Fine traditions, a living folklore, a common faith and popular arts still full of vital impulse held the place of the book learning dispensed by our schools. For better or for worse, times have changed; the industrial revolution, better . communications, overurbanisation, even the spread of shallow teaching have very often and very quickly sterilised that peasant culture, discredited its traditions, destroyed its beliefs and dried up the sources of its inspiration. And nothing has replaced it. This, perhaps, is the greatest of all the evils of our age. The future historian will admire our scientists, our poets, painters and musicians, but he will be compelled to add that these great men were isolated instances. They delivered, what was asked of them, the sciences, the art and fhe literature of a chosen few. They lived apart, unknown to the masses, as they were called. Those masses were born, worked and died without taking the smallest (continued on next page)

The Right to Education

(continued from previous page) part in that brilliant civilisation, although from time to time they would be asked to sacrifice for it their lives and their belongings. Access to Education If we are not to merit the same Condemnation, we must all ‘of us-every state, every community and every social unit-envisage profound educational reforms. It would, of course, be absurd to impose the discipline of the universities on all, or to try to fill the gaps in men’s hearts and minds with éncyclopaedic knowledge. But it is becoming every day more unjust and more dangerous to reserve intellectual and spiritual culture for a few, while distributing to the majority, and that sparingly, the rudiments of a purely utilitarian training. "Fyveryone," says atticle 27, "has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share ‘in scientific advancement and its benefits.’ But that right will remain a dead letter until we give everyone the means of participating. Who to-day would dare to speak of that right to the workers of our cities and our countryside, when all the culture they are offered consists of picture papers and detectiye films? Accordingly, the Declaration adopted by the United Nations has here a particular force: "There shall be equal access to higher education on the basis of merit." Such a declaration must not be addressed only to the schools; it /applies also to peoples’ universities. It applies to every museum keeper, every librarian, every theatre manager, every concert impresario. It is addressed to cinema workers and to press arfd radio journalists. To all, in fact, who are responsible for education at any level. It is addressed to all those whose profession, social position, and the very privileges of their education have made them repositories of that culture which would soon cease to mean anything if it were not shared with their brethren. ; Freedom is Fragile That is the community to which we must constantly return. It will then be seen that to a large extent the peace of ‘humanity will depend upon the quality of teaching and the value of the teachers. Each of the rights listed in the Universal Declaration is founded upon human freedom, Appalling experiences have shown us that freedom is Lnever a permanent acquisition; it is a fragile possession to be cared for and defended. In the, face of threats, under stress of want or even in an access of enthusiasm worse than coercion, whole ‘nations have been known to sacrifice it. We have to teach children that they are free, that they are free sq far as they wish to be; and to teach them at the same time that their liberty assumes the liberty of others. In other words, their first duty, and it is sometimes a very hard’ one, is to be free; after that, every right that they demand has as its counterpart the obligation to ensure that right for all. That untiring rediscovery of freedom, the learning and the teaching of it, are the essence of the educators’ task. And that applies to

all branches of knowledge, at all times, and to all subjects. More precise, however, and more immediate are the last aims assigned to education by the Declaration: it "shall pbe directed . .. to the promotion of 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." It is sad to observe that these definitions aré to-day mere aspirations, a still remote ideal. For that our teachers are not to blame and I know as well as anyone the trust we must place in them. But in face of such a mass of ignorance and prejudice to be abolished and of so much sloth to be overcome, our teachers will not be equal to their task, unless they are firmly and steadily backed by public opinion. Fatal Andchronisms One of our first endeavours must surely be directed towards the teaching of history. As things are to-day, no child has a chance to learn the history of the nations; there is no one to reveal to him the slow evolution of cultures, languages, religions and sciences, that vast collaboration between civilisations and races which have woven and still weave the fabric of his destiny. On the contrary, all that he is told is the story of the petty triumphs of his own province, his own atmies, and his own incomparable country, which ends by appearing to him as an island set amidst a void. What is that but a betrayal of trust? At the same time prejudices, even when challenged in the school, survive outside it and often find strong bulwarks in the family, the workshop, the factory and their customary mouthpiece, the leading article. Hatred for the "hereditary foes," many in number ard continually added to, the countryman’s distrust of foreigners, scorn for "inferior" racés, these are fatal anachronisms, which still poison much of the reading matter widely reproduced, both for adults and for children. They are met with everywhere, barring the road to the finest of international enterprises. I call those prejudices anachronistic. They survive with renewed virulence every time each of us reaets in his heart, even without clearly understanding them, against the numerous links which bind us to the whole human community. Just as we owe our food and our clothing to distant climates, so there is not one of our thoughts, our joys and our sufferings which does not derive from the collaboration of the whole vast universe. Above all, we know now that there is no really independent nation, that no man has the right to say that he is without responsibilities; we know that the lives of all of us are involved in a single skein, that, in a word, society is sttiving towards universality. It follows that false pride and selfishness, together with scorn for ‘other nations, classes, sects and races, must vanish from a world which has at last resolved to stamp out war. That is the goal towards which the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is leading us.