THE CONQUEST OF THE RIGHT TO EDUCATION

       the conquest of the right to education

Today, in the majority of the countries of the world, it is the school which ensures the education of all the children. This  school for all  is public, free and obligatory. But it is the case only since the end of  the xix ^E century: previously, the instruction was reserved to privileged people, with an elite, and the school for all spent time to be essential. The history of the school can thus be regarded as  a conquest of the right to education.

This right to education, recognized nowadays like  a right of the child, however is not guaranteed in the whole world. There are very great inequalities between the rich countries and the poor countries in the access to the education which they are able to offer.

1.   NEED FOR TRANSMITTING ALWAYS EXISTED KNOWLEDGE A

In the old companies, it is the group which ensures the transmission of knowledge and the rules of life young people. What is significant, it is that the savoirs are transmitted of one generation to the other, and that the entire group benefits from the knowledge of each one. The training is done on the mode of the imitation  and by rites of initiation. It rests primarily on the word, on  the oral tradition  (nothing is written). 

The transmission of the savoirs plays a fundamental role in  the cohesion of the group.

2.   The SCHOOL IS BORN WITH the WRITING 

The school is born with the appearance of the writing, 5 000 years ago. The writing makes it possible to fix the savoirs and the principles of life which the men want to transmit to the following generations. 

The first systems of education  appear in the great empires which are born in Egypt, India and China. The leaders of these great empires need  civils servant trained  to help them  to ensure the stability  of their country. Economic prosperity and the needs for the administration thus allow the installation  of specialized agencies  whose role is to transmit knowledge: the school was born. 

3.   THE FIRST SCHOOLS EXEMPT A RELIGIOUS TEACHING WITH THE PRIVILEGED PEOPLE

In addition to teaching of the reading and writing, the first schools teach the religious and philosophical principles. The lesson is indeed a primarily monk and it is generally  to the priests  that is entrusted the responsibility to preserve and to transmit the knowledge. 

The lesson "is sacrilized ": it is impossible to criticize them or to modify them. The pupils must generally  learn by heart. The school worries little about the intellectual development of each one. 

Moreover, nothing are planned for the poor, which do not have to exert responsibilities, nor for the girls, whose traditional role is confined within the framework of the house.

4.   The GREEK PHILOSOPHERS EMPHASIZE The TRAINING OF The INDIVIDUAL AND The CITIZEN

The first reflexions on what must be the school are born in Greece during Antiquity. Many schools of philosophy are open. Their objective is not only any more to inculcate preestablished savoirs, but more especially to lead the pupils  to reflect  and  to make progress knowledge. The first true  programs of teaching  are thus set up in Greece, then in Rome. It is as of this time as date teaching division in three degrees: primary education, secondary, academic.

For the Greek philosopher  Socrate, for example, all the defects come from ignorance. It is thus significant to train all the men "Knows oneself, yourself", likes it to repeat. For him, knowledge is not in the books, it is built by the reasoning and the contact with the direct teaching of a Master. This method is a revolution because it makes  confidence with the intelligence more than with the memory.

For Socrate and its successors (such as  Plato  and  Aristote), it is also necessary  to train citizens  able to exert the democracy.

The generous principles of the Greek thought should not however make forget its  great elitism: teaching is always reserved for a small number of individuals.

5.   THE FIRST UNIVERSITIES APPEAR WITH THE MIDDLE AGES

With the Middle Ages, the strength of teaching dies out a little everywhere in the whole of the Western Christian world: knowledge is locked up again behind the walls of the monasteries.

However, starting from  the xi ^E century, is born a new dash for the studies, in particular thanks to philosophers and theologists like Pierre Abélard and especially  holy Thomas d' Aquin. It is at the time medieval that the higher education starts to be released from the control of the Church, and that the first universities  are founded  (Oxford in 1133, Salamanque in 1218, Sorbonne in 1257, Cambridge in 1284, Montpellier in 1289, Bologna in 1317, Heidelberg in 1386, etc).

In parallel also with the Middle Ages the vocational training  develops, through the corporations where côtoient themselves main, companions and  apprentices.

6.   The HUMANISTIC Ones AND The PHILOSOPHERS OF The LIGHTS PREACH A NEW VISION OF EDUCATION

To the xvi ^E century, the humanistic ones rediscover the authors of Antiquity and defend the idea that it is the man, and not God, who must occupy the central position in the world. The design of teaching is of course upset by these new ideas, whose very recent printing works allows the broad diffusion.

Writers like Montaigne and Rabelais thus preach  a new vision of education, at the same time in its objective and its methods, like in its ambition. It is about  a complete formation  (all arts, all sciences, but also the body), also turned towards  the blooming of the individual. Concretely however, besides some initiatives local which try to apply the new ideas, teaching hardly changes.

To the xviii ^E century,  philosophers  as Rousseau  criticize the traditional methods of teaching. They think that each pupil should be able to discover the knowledge, freely and  without constraint. Other philosophers insist especially on the importance of the broadest teaching and  most ambitious  possible, so that each individual can carry out his potential within the company and take part in  the political life.

7.   The FRENCH REVOLUTION AFFIRMS the IDEA OF The SCHOOL FOR ALL

It is in this context that in 1789 the French revolution  takes place. Among the revolutionists, those which are in favour of the democracy preach also the installation  of the school for all. The majority of the ideas which will make it possible to build the modern school are thus expressed for the revolutionary period:

–the instruction is essential for the democracy. It must be addressed to all the individuals without exception, including the girls. It must thus be free and obligatory;

–the instruction concerns  the responsibility for the State. It must be public and laic and nonprivate and denominational (i.e. religious). The professors must thus be civils servant of the State, specifically trained for their function.

However, the revolutionary government does not manage to apply these ideas. It is finally  Napoleon,  at the beginning of  the xix ^E century, which creates secondary and university education public. However, primary education teaching remains private and paying essentially, always with the load of the Church. The majority of the modest children of families are constrained to work with the factory.

8.   THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION CREATES A REQUEST FOR FORMATION

To the xix ^E century, technical progress and increasing industrialization radically change the needs for the European companies as regards education. Up to that point, the majority of the economic activities did not require semi-skilled labour. From now on, the companies need to recruit better and better trained workmen and executives, and the State, if he wants to accompany the economic advancement by the country, must answer effectively this  request for formation.

9.   The LAWS JULES FERRY FOUND the PUBLIC SCHOOL, FREE AND OBLIGATORY

In France, the reforms favorable to the introduction of the school for all take place throughout xix ^E  century, and in particular  III ^E République  (1870-1940). They lead to the adoption of the laws Jules Ferry (1880-1882) which issue a public primary school , laic, free and obligatory, for the girls as for the boys.

Thus, at the end of the xix ^E century, the ideas of the French revolution are converted into  a right to the elementary instruction. Illiteracy regresses quickly in France. The other countries of Europe follow at the same period a comparable evolution. Exemption from payment of the college, then college, is essential in the years 1930.

10.               The RIGHT To EDUCATION BECOMES A HUMAN RIGHT AND A RIGHT OF The CHILD

The right to education is finally recognized in France and in the world to the medium of  the xx ^E century. One attends  a democratization of the studies.

It remains however much to make, in particular to reduce  the inequalities of the chances, in particular in the secondary and for the access to the higher studies, to accomodate the handicapped children and to support those in great difficulty of training. In the same way, if the school school and works are free with the primary education as with the secondary, the access to the culture (books, museums, etc.) is not it. Finally, certain children leave the school with an insufficient luggage to allow them to fit in the company and to express their potential there.

At the dawn of the III ^E thousand-year-old, the school for all the children of the world is still not a reality. To make so that all the children of the world, girls like boys, have access to a primary education teaching and have equal chances to enter the secondary, as the International Convention  of the rights of the child envisages it  is one of the priorities of UNO and its agency which is devoted to childhood, Unicef: it is a stake of  international solidarity.