HUMAN RIGHTS JUSTIFICATION

Human right is justified on the concept of human equality. All normal human beings are endowed by nature with reasons and freewill. This normally excludes imbeciles and idiots for examples. Thus all normal human beings are born free with their natural faculties of intelligence and freedom. There lies the fundamental natural basis of the natural equality of all homo sapiens. In what makes a man a human being, all men are equal. As a consequence of this, all men are equally entitled to be treated as human persons. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 1 states:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.12 These essential natural faculties are not the special possession of a given group of individuals. They are rather the natural prerogatives of all human beings.  It naturally follows that all human beings are not only equal in natural dignity but also equal in their fundamental natural rights.

Hobhouse, in his attempt to locate a point for equal treatment of men in socio-political matters dealt with what could be summarized as common humanity. He opined:

There is something peculiar to human beings without distinction of class, race or sex, which lies far deeper than all differences between them. Call it what we may, soul, reason, the capacity for suffering, or just human nature, it is something generic, of which there may be many specific, as well as quantitative differences, but which underlies and embraces them all.

However, Adewole 14 attempted to fault Hobhouse's assertions on many grounds but that should not detain us. Human inequalities exist in parentage and ancestry, in birth and growth, in talent and abilities,   in  intelligence,  in  physical  and  moral  characteristics. Jencks equally opined that: differences are noticeable as regards sex, race, religion, colour  and   socio-economic   standing,   geographical   and ethnological location.

These diversities and differences among human beings, though very real, do not affect the essential and Fundamental equality of all men in natural dignity and personality. In the face of this basic natural equality, therefore, the differences must be recognized as non-essential. They are rather accidental to the natural personality of every human person. Being inconsequential and accidental, these differences must not adversely affect or violate the fundamental human rights which are grounded on the equal dignity of all men.

WHAT IS RIGHT?

That which one has due to him, That upon which one has a just demand.   That to which one has a proper claim.   The privilege given to one, sanctioned and safeguarded by what is regarded as an authoritative source such as God, a King, law, as social group, custom, tradition, conscience. From the foregoing, therefore, if one is said to have a right to something, it would be wrong or wronging him not to give him that thing which he has a right.   And one is said to have a right to something which it would be wrong or wronging him to prevent or stop him from doing that thing.    So when one has a right to something then he has a legitimate claim to it. For instance, if it is the right of a citizen to enjoy his property, then it becomes the duty of the political authority to ensure that he is not deprived of the enjoyment of his property.

Stressing that education is a right of a child, Mill18 opined that to bring a child into existence without a fair prospect of being able not only to provide food for its body, but instruction and training was, in his view, a moral crime both against the unfortunate offspring and against society, and he contended that if the parent does not fulfill this obligation, the state ought to see it fulfilled.

Olafson shared similar view with "Mill regarding the correlative duty of parents as regards the education of their children as he opined:

Scaled down to the limits of the relationship of parents to child, What the principle of morality requires of parents is that they care for the human beings .whom they have brought into existence ... Here in any case, we reach the moral bed-rock on which our duties to our children and thus, by derivation, their right to education finally rest. In many developing countries, including Nigeria, rights are not clearly distinguished from customs or prescriptions of customs developed into law.    In this set-up there is tendency to identify rights with those possessions or activities in which the governing power takes to protect man. Thus right here is being conceived as power and man's natural right amounted to the power he could exercise  over  another.      To  corroborate  this  view,   Edwards described right as: a power of acting ... what he conceives to be his own good, secured to an individual by the community.20 Endorsing this view implies that a Sovereign's right will be regarded as the power he could exercise by virtue of the combined power of all the individuals who are prepared to support him.

In this writer's view, however, a right does not necessarily imply power except perhaps in the sense of legal competence for instance, the power to make a will. For a man may have rights he is powerless to enforce if the courts are corrupt. What powers do the citizens of the third world uunifies have to enforce their rights to education? What powers do Nigerian children have to compel their parents and the state to make provisions for the enjoyment of their right to education as advocated by Mill and Olafson (op. cit.)? One might perhaps say that the clamour for mere right to education is an advocacy for a hypothetical power to education. If this is true, then the enjoyment of mere right to education becomes problematic.

This writer's- objective position is that it will be safer and fundamentally reasonable to view the acquisition of formal education by a man in the context of human right. The problems of illiteracy which are concomitant with the absence of formal education are indeed many and varied.   For instance, an illiterate

cannot:

a.          read or write a fetter;

b.          look up a number in a telephone;

c.          read a contract or health insurance form;

d.          read a map when lost;

e.          understand a prescription for medicine;

f.           read road signs;

g.          help the children with their home work;

h.         hold a job requiring basic reading or writing skills;

i.          understand poison labels or other warnings.

Illiteracy, a deeply-rooted social phenomenon, negates the basic right to learn, to know and to communicate. A flagrant injustice, illiteracy prevents people from being equal before the law. The illiterate is unaware of the laws which could protect him. He is completely at the mercy of others. By remaining a victim of ignorance, an individual limits his contribution to the productive work and draws little benefit from the society to which he belongs. Education liberates the individual from darkness, ignorance, impatience and unemployment. Education is a means to authentic human development as it is a vehicle for economic efficiency, social and political competence, moral acceptability and intellectual and cultural sophistication.

A human right designates a moral status that every person has simply as a human being. Such rights are not dependent on being merited but can be satisfied by human beings generally in the course of their development. And because they belong to human beings as such, they cannot be alienated.

It is probably in realization of the all-important role education plays in the life of man that the National Assembly in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on the 10th of December, 1948, gave the right to education a pride of place. Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states infer alia:

i.          Everyone has the right to education. Education shall

be free at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.

ii.        Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and the strengthening of respect for the human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote    understanding, tolerance and  friendship among all nations   racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace. The United Nations by its declaration of human right to education has thereby set out a common standard that should apply to all members of the human race, irrespective of colour, sex, language or other status.   The world added a protocol two years after the epochal Declaration. In the "Protocol to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms" signed at Rome on 4th November, 1950, the world totally abhorred the denial of right to education and prescribed in Article 2 that:

No person shall be denied the right to education. Five years after this Protocol, the world jurists met in Athens and in its Acts of Athens, the International commission of Jurists passed a resolution that:

the   right   to   education   must   be   guaranteed   without discrimination.

It was the considered opinion of the jurists that it is one of the minimum conditions of a juridical system in which the fundamental rights and human dignity are respected.

The crusade against any form of discrimination in education also found favour in the "Convention Against Discrimination in Education", which was adopted on 14th of December, 1960. Six years after the convention was adopted, the world came up with the "International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights". It was annexed to Resolution 2200 (XXI) of the General Assembly of the United Nations and adopted 16th December, 1966. It was opened for signature, ratification and Accession on 19th December, 1966.

Article 13 (1) states:

The State Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to education. They agree that education should be directed to the full development of the human personality and the sense of its dignityand shall strengthen the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms ... The United Nations Educational and Scientific Organization (UNESCO) in its Constitution guarantees the: full and equal opportunities for education for all. The unrestricted pursuit of objective truth and free exchange of ideas and knowledge.

The human right to education, the freedom from discrimination in education and full opportunities for education as proclaimed by the several world bodies have also found concrete expression in various constitutions of the countries of the world including some African countries. A few examples of the Constitutions of African countries as noted by Fawehinmi 23 will suffice here.

ALGERIA: Constitution September 10, 1963 Article 18: Education is obligatory.   It shall be offered to all without other discrimination than resulting from the aptitude of each individual and the needs of the community, CONGO BRAZZAVILLE: Constitution December 8, 1963 Article 12: The State shall guarantee equal access for children and adults to instructions, professional education and culture. Every child has a right to instruction and education.

In spite of the 1948 United Nations Declaration on Human Right to Education and the fact that the work on reporting, drafting and enacting human right measures are going on, illiteracy still remains a nagging problem, the world over. There are today throughout the world nearly one thousand million adults who cannot read and write. One hundred million children of school age have no place to learn and more are threatening to swell the ranks of the adult illiterates of the twenty-first century.2'' That is probably why the United Nations General Assemble proclaimed 1990 International Literacy Year (ILY) and gave UNESCO the role of lead Organization for the year's preparation and observance.

The objectives for the International Literacy Year approved by the twenty-fourth session of the UNESCO General conference in autum of 1987 are:

i. increasing action by the governments of member states afflicted with illiteracy or functional illiteracy to eliminate these problems, particularly through education in the rural areas and urban slums, in favour of women and girls among populations and groups having special educational problems or needs;

ii. increase public awareness of the scope, nature and implications of illiteracy as well as the means and conditions for combating it. In particular, an effort should be made to alert public opinion to the rate of illiteracy among adult women and its implications for the well-being of their children, the lower rate of school participation among girls than boys and the association between illiteracy, on the one hand, and poverty, underdevelopment and economic, social and cultural exclusion on the other;

iii. increase population participation, within and among countries, in efforts to combat illiteracy, particularly through activities of governmental and non-governmental organizations, voluntary associations and community groups;

iv. increasing co-operation and solidarity among member states in the struggle against illiteracy;

v. increasing co-operation with the United Nations system and more generally, among all inter-governmental organizations in the struggle against illiteracy.

vi. using International Literacy Year for Launching the Plan of Action for the eradication of illiteracy by the year 2000 and for addressing issues of critical importance is the progress of literacy such as reducing primary school drop­out and establishing post-literacy programmes. Consequent   upon  United  Nation's  General   Assembly's proclamation of 1990 as internations Literacy Year, member states have been making humble efforts towards the realization of the set objectives.   It will perhaps be most expedient now to x-ray the Nigerian Literacy Scene.