The Right to Education – Its Meaning, Significance and Limitations
| Author | Manfred Nowak |
| Published date | 01 December 1991 |
| Date | 01 December 1991 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/016934419100900404 |
| Subject Matter | Part A: Article |
NQHR4/1991
THE
RIGHT
TO
EDUCATION -
ITS
MEANING,
SIGNIFICANCE
AND
LIMITATIONS
Manfred Nowak
I History of the Right to Education
There are many ironies in history. One of them relates to the development of
the right to education in international law. Like other economic, social and
cultural rights,
it
has
its origins in the Socialist concept of human rights, and
it
was promoted on the international level by Socialist States. But only now,
when these States are gradually disappearing, serious efforts for the inter-
national implementation of these rights are undertaken.
Although compulsory primary education was praised as a major achieve-
ment already during the age of Enlightenment in Europe, the right to education
did not figure among the civil liberties enumerated in domestic Bills of Rights
proclaimed by most European and American nations in the late 18th and 19th
centuries. The main reason for this omission is simply that in the liberal
concept of human rights, civil liberties were understood as "negative" rights
directed against State interference. In the Socialist concept, on the contrary, the
right to education, together with the right to work and the right to social
security, figured among the most prominent human rights which were
conceived as individual rights that required positive action by the State and
society.
Thanks to the insistence of representatives of Socialist States in the United
Nations the Universal Declaration
of
Human Rights of 1948 does not only
contain the classical civil and political rights, but also the most important
economic, social and cultural rights. Article 26 guarantees to everyone the right
to education and provides in considerable detail that
• Lecturer at the Verwaltungsakademie des Bundes, Vienna. This paper was presented to the
International Workshop of World University Service on "Education for All" on 6 September
1991, New Delhi, India. For the Declaration of this meeting and information about World
University Service, see Appendices I and II of this NQHR.
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