Education Denied

This unique contribution to global educational debate and policymaking aims to highlight the adverse impacts on children and young people of not having access to effective formal education. The author is the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education. In reviewing the emerging commitment to universal education and the difficult history of trying to give effect to this commitment, particularly in the past half century, the author draws on three bodies of literature - on education specifically, on the development process generally, and on human rights. Her intention is to develop an approach which shifts the debate from sheer numbers of pupils, funding mechanisms and the recent preoccupation with market forces to a deeper discussion about what the right to education should really comprise, how governments and other institutions actually go about, or fail in, giving effect to it on a universal and non-discriminatory basis, and what happens to young people within the educational process itself. The book is an indispensable tour d‘horizon of the history and problems encountered in the global quest for universal education. It also points up the discrimination and abuses of power this quest has involved and what needs now to be done.

Table of Contents:
Introduction PART 1: WHY THE RIGHT TO EDUCATION? 1. Why Do We Need Safeguards Against Denials and Abuses of Education by Governments 2. The Economics of the Right to Education 3. The Promise of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights 4. The Core Contents of the Right to Education PART 2: RUPTURING THE GLOBAL CONSENSUS 5. Enter The World Bank: Changing the Parameters of the Debate 6. Impoverishment of Public Education and Its Cost 7. Unwilling, Unable or Unlike-Minded? Creators of Global Education Strategy 8. Painfully Visible Loss of the Right to Education: Transfigured University PART 3: PUTTING HUMAN RIGHTS BACK IN 9. Exposing and Opposing Exclusion 10. Revisiting Segregated Education 11. Rights-Based Education as Pathway to Gender Equality 12. Human Rights Safeguards In Education 13. Summing Up: Human Rights through Education

About the Author :
Katarina Tomasevski is Professor of International Law and International Relations at Lund University and External Lecturer at the Centre for African Studies of Copenhagen University. Educated at the University of Zagreb and Harvard Law School, her teaching experience spans all regions and includes professional training courses in human rights mainstreaming. Katarina Tomasevski is Professor of International Law and International Relations at Lund University and External Lecturer at the Centre for African Studies of Copenhagen University. Educated at the University of Zagreb and Harvard Law School, her teaching experience spans all regions and includes professional training courses in human rights mainstreaming. She is currently Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. This role has involved conceptualizing the right to education, carrying out human rights missions to individual countries to assess problems and prospects, investigating alleged violations of the right to education, and promoting rights-based education at all levels (from the local to the global) of policy-making. Katarina Tomasevski has conducted major cross-national research projects, including on the fate of imprisoned children, the human rights dimensions of HIV/AIDS, and the application of international human rights safeguards for women in different regions and countries. She has published extensively in English and Spanish and her books have been translated into French, Japanese and Chinese. Her books include: Responding to Human Rights Violations 1946-1999 (Kluwer Law International, 2000) Between Sanctions and Elections (Pinter Publishers/Cassell, 1997) Foreigners in Prison (HEUNI, 1994) Human Rights in Population Policies (SIDA, 1994) Women & Human Rights (UN/NGLS and Zed Books, 1993).

Review :
Katarina Tomasevski‘s analysis provides a refreshing and well-reasoned argument for greater attention for the right to education. More importantly, Tomasevski brings a keen historical analysis to the subject to illustrate that the distortion of this right through the emphasis on economic liberalization and the primacy of the free market ideology in institutions like the World Bank has added to the scourge of underdevelopment in many countries. Quite clearly, there is a need to revisit the dominant neo-liberal formulations of the last years that have failed in the essential link of improving the general condition of humankind. Tomasevski‘s message in this regard is succinct and poignant: ignore the right to education at the peril of humanity. This is a remarkable book, different than any I have read. It does not simply depart from a human rights perspective but makes a human rights perspective central to every paragraph. In doing so, it raises all the current issues surrounding today‘s discussions of education and development, but in ways that challenge all of us to stop and reconsider how we think about them. The writing is vivid and the logic relentless. This book is a must read for anyone interested in education, in how and why so many children are excluded from education, and in what needs to be done to change that. This is an impressive book. It is written by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to education. In making a strong plea for rights-based education, the author is more than anyone else qualified to expose shortcomings and denials as well as to highlight potentials and positive practices. Katarina Tomasevski‘s work is challenging and rich in content and scope. Among many other issues, she addresses such vital problems as combating exclusion and segregation in education and overcoming persistent racial and xenophobic prejudices. A most attractive feature of the book is the full use of telling illustrations, tables, charts, figures, photographs and boxes. This book must be read, it must be grasped and not the least, it must be viewed. With vivid and concrete examples, Katarina Tomasevski points out how governments violate the right to education. Investing in education is indispensable for effective political participation and for enabling individuals to sustain themselves. It is the key for the preservation of cultural values and the foundation for the elimination of discrimination. The author has performed a most valuable task. Her work is a call to the conscience of the world and a poignant plea to halt the dangerous trend of denying that education is a human right. Anyone who cares about the right of every child to education should read this book. Policy makers, directors of international financial institutions, teachers, parents and students will be enlightened and challenged. No sacred cows are exempt from scrutiny. As she has done in her reports as UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education, Katarina Tomasevski reveals the inconsistencies in the policies and practices than not only deny access to education but also result in discrimination. The right to education is the bridge to enjoyment of all other human rights