The Right to Education: Are We Facing the Challenges?

Overview & Synopsis

The Constitution provides the ground rules to create obligations on the state and to transform the education system by introducing human rights in line with the best developed democracies. This article is not about state-compelled school attendance, but rather the observe: the right to attend school. So while the right to attend school is part of the answer, it is far from the whole answer to the question of the right to education. Is it in the best interest of the child if there are still many corrupt practices in the public school sector? Whose rights are we talking about- those of the child or his or her parents? The mere fact that enforcement mechanisms is not an effective tool of measuring the exercise of the right in education. The article first sets out the constitutional framework in South Africa so far as it bears on the right to education, including whether a constitutional right to education can be implied by the Bill of Rights. It will then probe the extent to which provincial school acts and regulations, and provincial human rights, provide a general right to education.