OpenEd: Week 1 Why Open Education?

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

In my opinion the "right to education" is a basic human right. One reason for me is that without education couldn’t access to a worthy employment in labour market (first article, Tomaševski, page 9), therefore, they can’t have a normal life, for example, buy food, clothes, etc... And this is a basic human right:

http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html

Like a simile, I can say that such the minds as the stomach need to be fed. They are two different kinds of famine, but both help to develop to the human beings, one develops the personality and qualities, and the other develops the body.

The poverty education generates ignorance, illiterate and other evils which must be resolved quickly. I can’t imagine a world where the ignorance directs it, thus the education is necessary, in particular, the objective education where isn’t manipulate the reality, neither violate other rights. Used to happen sometimes, in war time or repression time, that the educative system is corrupted, teaching to the children to have hate to what is different, other ethnic groups or impose a religious belief... all that is a culture medium and is a possible future bomb, only watching the world news about human bombs whom are created by Islamism.

Like I say above, in my opinion, the education is a right and is logic that mustn’t pay it; the money can’t be able to steal a right, therefore the governments that adopt and ratify this international treaty, must create strategic plans to face the costs that the basic education generate. The governments must carry out a budget to be able to pay teachers whom are fundamental part in the education (first article, Tomaševski, page 40). The new technologies allow us to be in somewhere (mobile, D. Wiley, page 4), thus can build less schools and thus cheapen costs. Studying these technologies, the governments could cheapen the costs. A curious example about to take advantage of these new technologies, it is what happen in Cuba, where the children learn through the TV in a determinate hours. It is sure that the process isn’t the best since isn’t communication between teacher and learner, but allows the children who are living in rural areas have to access to the information and helping them by their parents, this information could become education.

http://www.granma.cu/espanol/mayo03/sabado24/sue%C3%B1os.html

The education at least must be compulsory in primary and secondary education to resolve the problems commented above, but it doesn’t became an agony or problem for the children (first article, Tomaševski, page 35). Therefore we must put resources to prevent it, must talk with them to try learning and can improve the educative system for each country, many times doesn’t take them into account (first article, Tomaševski, page 36-37).

Some countries that ratify this treaty in theory, they don’t carry out it in practice. It happens because the country can’t accomplish the treaty. The countries ought to be able and willing to secure it (second article, Tomaševski, page 15), but that is questioned.

To take control of this situation, the governments and foundations should make strategies and statistics but there is no internationally collected data on access to education by race, ethnicity or religion. All those things do impossible to monitor the progress and retrogression (second article, Tomaševski, page 29) and make impossible to accomplish the compulsory education.