Page 3312 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 22 August 2012
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As set out in the government’s response, we have decided to include the right to education as one of the protected rights in the act. The right is based on article 13 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has stated that the right to education requires that functioning educational institutions and programs have to be available in sufficient quantity within a country. The committee has identified that education is both a human right in itself and an indispensible means of realising other human rights.
The government is taking clear action to strengthen existing protections for the right to education. Education is a fundamental building block for a civil and prosperous society. The significance of our efforts in the human rights arena will be acknowledged when the ACT becomes the first Australian jurisdiction to formally recognise the importance of education as a human right.
The inclusion of the right to education reflects the understanding that education is essential to the full development of a person’s personality, their full potential and their sense of dignity. UN general comment 13 states:
As an empowerment right, education is the primary vehicle by which economically and socially marginalised adults and children can lift themselves out of poverty and obtain the means to participate fully in their communities. Education has a vital role in empowering women, safeguarding children from exploitative and hazardous labour and sexual exploitation, promoting human rights and democracy, protecting the environment, and controlling population growth. Increasingly, education is recognised as one of the best financial investments States can make. But the importance of education is not just practical: a well-educated, enlightened and active mind, able to wander freely and widely, is one of the joys and rewards of human existence.
This bill reinforces the right to free primary school education and access to further education, vocational and continuing training.
I would like to briefly turn to Mr Seselja’s foreshadowed amendment. The government is happy to support this amendment. The amendment does not derogate from or impact on the intent of the government’s bill. The Education Act already provides for education to be free and to be compulsory in government schooling until the age of 17 or until completion of year 12. And that education, of course, in government schools is free.
The ANU-University of New South Wales report did not recommend the presentation of the right in this manner. It recommended the presentation of the right consistent with the international covenant. But it is nevertheless reasonable to suggest that the right should reflect not just the intent of the UN covenant, which is the government’s proposal, but also how it interacts fully with the provisions for compulsory, free and universal government schooling until the age of 17 in the ACT Education Act. For those reasons the government has no objection to the intent or the actuality of Mr Seselja’s amendment.
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