Week 1 August 27: Why Open Education?

Before I start answering the questions for this week, I want to make a few comments. It was interesting to me that the Tomasevski's 2001 work "Removing obstacles in the way of the right to education" makes reference to a report about Brazil which was already outdated in 2001. Sadek and Borges' report was published in 1985, but in 1988 Brazil had a constitutional reform. In the new Constitution, illiterates are no longer precluded from the right to vote. Voting is still mandatory in Brazil, but illiterate people can vote if they want. It has become optional for them. As it is optional for those who are more than 70 years old. It is also an option for those who are older than 16 but younger than 18. For all other people it is an obligation. In my case, for instance, since I am living abroad now, I have to justify to the Brazilian government why I cannot participate in the voting process. This involves filling out some forms. It is an obligation for me. Well, I do not necessaraly agree with this, but just wanted to clarify what the situation really is in Brazil now.
I will mention that this exercise gave me an opportunity to read parts of the Constitution. :-) I have not done this in a while.
All right, now to the questions:

1) In your opinion, is the "right to education" a basic human right? Why or why not?

Yes, in my opinion education is a basic human right. And I think that it should read "good education". Just to mention Brazil again, the access to basic education is guaranteed in the Constitution. But not all children are in the schools. Some are forced to work in order to help their families (or for other reasons) and the government does not have the power to force parents to send their children to school. But the federal government has implemented some measures to give some financial support for poor families that keep their children in school. Well, the situation is too complex. It involves many social, economical and political issues.
Basic education in Brazil is guaranteed by the state and paid by the tax payers. Unfortunately, public education has deteriorated in its quality in many aspects.
Going back to the main question, I view education as the key to citizenship. One cannot function socially without much knowledge. And education has to be good, substantial. I am aware that the world is changing all the time and too fast and that the concept of education has to change as well. But it cannot surrender to nowaday's trend of fugacity. It cannot also be attached to the treacherous interestes of the business world.
As for the academy, it is, indeed, different from the corporate world. Different in its purpose, methods, objectives and nature. I agree that the academy has to adapt in many ways to the changing world, but has to maintain its principles.

2) In your opinion, is open *access* to free, high-quality educational opportunity sufficient, or is it necessary to *mandate* education through a certain age or level?
I tend to think that having access to high-quality education should be already good enough. But in reality we know that things are different in the practical world. Well, I have just written about the Brazilian situation. Although there is free access to education (not necessarily good, but...), there are other factors that intervene in the basic right to education. Should it be mandatory? It should. But I think that treating this issue like this is too simplistic - because only being mandatory does not solve the poor situation of education nowadays. More should come from the governments in terms of funds for schools. More should also come from international agencies. But in some developing countries, it is too much to expect that governments have enough resources in order to keep a good educational system. Global economical issues also interfere in local realities. So it is not too simple.

A great day for everybody,
Catia