Why do I have to learn algebra?

Article 26: We all have the right to education

It’s in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). It’s the Millennium Development Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education. We are told repeatedly of the value of education. It has been said often; and it has been said loud. It changes lives.

But we all wake up some, or most, mornings and wish we just didn’t have to go to school. We do not like that teacher. We do not like this subject. We do not want to get up at 7 o’clock in the morning. Some days we just can’t be bothered. And how on earth will algebra ever be of benefit?

For like all things that we have, and can have: we take it for granted.

The right to education in the west is, often, a non-issue. We are all required to attend school until we are 16 years of age, because years ago a government decreed that that was the way it was to be.

But in many countries throughout the world the obstacles that can hinder, a child’s, opportunity for education can range from the insurmountable, to the seemingly insignificant and minute. The list is literally endless. The school is too far away; they have to work; free and compulsory education does not exist in their country; they cannot afford schoolbooks; they can’t attend school because there is no clean lavatory.

To be educated is often times the only way to better yourself. JK Rowling, her of Harry Potter fame, once said that even though, at one stage, she was unemployed and living on benefits, she knew that she would be fine, and would avoid ‘the poverty trap’, because she had one thing going for her: she was educated.

There are very few of us, who will ever be able to attain an adequate standard of living as adults, without first being educated. Imagine for a moment that you couldn’t read, or that you couldn’t do simple maths? What job could you do? If you were sick you couldn’t even read the instructions on a medicine bottle. You would, in effect, have a disability.

Education may allow us to read about, and question, many theories and ideas, but the fact that we can even read them, in the first place, means that we have been educated.

In India last week, eight years after they amended the constitution to make education a fundamental right, the government implemented a historic law to provide free and compulsory education to all children from 6-14 years of age.

The 86th Constitutional amendment making education a fundamental right was passed by Parliament in 2002. Both the Constitutional amendment and the new law came into force on the 1st of April. And hopefully this will be no April fool’s joke.

The new law makes it obligatory for the state governments and local bodies to ensure that every child gets education in a school in the neighbourhood.

The problem of child labour in the world’s largest democracy is a major human rights issue.

Many children under the age of fifteen work in carpet making factories, glass blowing units and making fireworks with bare little hands. According to the statistics, given by the Indian government, there are 20 million child labourers in the country, while many other organisations claim that the number to be nearer 50 million.

If the new law is to be rigidly enforced, it could mean that we see a major decrease in the problem of child labour in India.

So the next time it’s raining; or the next time you just can’t be bothered getting out of bed, when you look at your alarm clock and see that its 7 o’clock. Perhaps, remember that the only reason you know it’s 7 o’clock, is because someone taught you how to tell time.