The right to education: a pillar of empowerment amid South Africa's ongoing struggles

About seven years ago and before I started working at Daily Maverick, I was employed at an NGO that fought for people’s constitutionally guaranteed rights to basic education and healthcare. I started a podcast called United in Our Diversity, which was aimed at empowering people with knowledge and understanding of these rights and how to access them.

The podcast also served as a reminder of the importance of evaluating one’s experience of these rights, particularly around election time when political parties canvass citizens for their all-important votes.

Having been primarily involved in the right-to-education section of the organisation, it’s not surprising that the episode that struck me most was one locating this right within international legal frameworks.

According to Unesco, “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 an empowerment right.

It lifts marginalised groups out of poverty.

It is an indispensable means of realising other rights.

It contributes to the full development of the human personality.”

However, the state of the basic and tertiary education system has made me reflect on just how the right to education came to be enshrined in our Constitution, as well as its intended effect in our society. For a country as deeply unequal as we are, and facing the levels of poverty because of diminished economic opportunities that we do, this right has never been more critical.

It cannot be divorced from South Africa’s brutal and murderous past in which the right to education was bastardised and weaponised as a tool of systemic oppression. And it is even more urgent that this right be realised, not only to break generational poverty cycles, but to correct historical wrongs by providing redress to generations of black people who went through the destructive Bantu education system designed to leave them subservient and undereducated.

Now we are faced with persistent overcrowding in schools and infrastructure challenges such as delayed and abandoned school construction projects, which undermine pupils’ right to be educated.

At a tertiary level, students face challenges of not being accommodated as a result of a lack of capacity, which came to a head in recent weeks across university campuses, prompting relief organisations to intervene with humanitarian aid.

One cannot help but lament the betrayal of the spirit of this right, as well as the exacerbation of our economic crisis because disenchanted students will proliferate on our streets, having been frustrated into leaving the education system. This impinges on our youth’s ability to be self-sufficient and also on their right to dignity.

One would hope that the duty bearers who now occupy the positions of power in the education system would remember this as they discharge their duties, which might inject a much-needed sense of urgency. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.