Virtual Tutoring and Student Support Systems: Human Rights Aspects

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Virtual Tutoring and Student Support Systems
Human Rights Aspects

• Jenny Geary
• Linda McKay-Panos
• June, 2004

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Virtual Tutoring Human Rights
Right to an Education International Universal
Declaration of Human Rights Article 26.
(1) 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 generally
available and higher education shall be equally
accessible to all on the basis of merit.
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Virtual Tutoring Human Rights
Right to an Education International Universal
Declaration of Human Rights Article 26
(continued) (2) Education shall be
directed to the full development of the human
personality and to the strengthening of respect
for 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.
(3) Parents have a prior right to choose the
kind of education that shall be given to their
children.
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Virtual Tutoring Human Rights
Right to an Education International International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights Article 13 1. The States Parties to
the present Covenant recognize the right of
everyone to education. They agree that education
shall be directed to the full development of the
human personality and the sense of its dignity,
and shall strengthen the respect for human rights
and fundamental freedoms. They further agree that
education shall enable all persons to participate
effectively in a free society, promote
understanding, tolerance and friendship among all
nations and all racial, ethnic or religious
groups, and further the activities of the United
Nations for the maintenance of peace.
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Virtual Tutoring Human Rights
Right to an Education International International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights Article 13 continued 2. The States
Parties to the present Covenant recognize that,
with a view to achieving the full realization of
this right (a) Primary education shall
be compulsory and available free to all
(b) Secondary education in its different forms,
including technical and vocational secondary
education, shall be made generally available and
accessible to all by every appropriate means, and
in particular by the progressive introduction of
free education (c) Higher education
shall be made equally accessible to all, on the
basis of capacity, by every appropriate means,
and in particular by the progressive introduction
of free education (d) Fundamental
education shall be encouraged or intensified as
far as possible for those persons who have not
received or completed the whole period of their
primary education (e) The development of
a system of schools at all levels shall be
actively pursued, an adequate fellowship system
shall be established, and the material conditions
of teaching staff shall be continuously improved.

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Virtual Tutoring Human Rights
Right to an Education International Source
UNESCO, World Report 2000 The Right to an
Education Towards education for all throughout
life
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Virtual Tutoring Human Rights
Right to an Education Life-Long Learning Source
World Conference on Education for All, Meeting
Basic Learning Needs, Jomtien, Thailand, 1990,
World Declaration on Education for All, Article
1, New York, Inter-Agency Commission (UNDP,
UNESCO, UNICEF, World Bank) for the World
Conference on Education for All, 1990.
Meeting basic learning needs 1. Every person
child, youth and adult shall be able to benefit
from educational opportunities designed to meet
their basic learning needs. These needs comprise
both essential learning tools (such as literacy,
oral expression, numeracy, and problem-solving)
and the basic learning content (such as
knowledge, skills, values and attitudes) required
by human beings to be able to survive, to develop
their full capacities, to live and work in
dignity, to participate fully in development, to
improve the quality of their lives, to make
informed decisions, and to continue learning. The
scope of basic learning needs and how they should
be met varies with individual countries and
cultures, and inevitably, changes with the
passage of time.
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Virtual Tutoring Human Rights
Right to an Education Life-Long Learning
Meeting basic learning needs (continued) 2. The
satisfaction of these needs empowers individuals
in any society and confers upon them a
responsibility to respect and build upon their
collective cultural, linguistic and spiritual
heritage, to promote the education of others, to
further the cause of social justice, to achieve
environmental protection, to be tolerant towards
social, political and religious systems which
differ from their own, ensuring that commonly
accepted humanistic values and human rights are
upheld, and to work for international peace and
solidarity in an interdependent world.
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Virtual Tutoring Human Rights
Right to an Education Life-Long Learning
Meeting basic learning needs (continued) 3.
Another and no less fundamental aim of
educational development is the transmission and
enrichment of common cultural and moral values.
It is in these values that the individual and
society find their identity and worth. 4. Basic
education is more than an end in itself. It is
the foundation for lifelong learning and
human development on which countries may build,
systematically, further levels and types of
education and training.
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Virtual Tutoring Human Rights
Disabled Persons and the Right to an Education

• International Law
• United Nations Declaration of the Rights of
  Disabled Persons
• 4. Disabled persons have the same civil and
  political rights as other human beings
• 5. Disabled persons are entitled to the measures
  designed to enable them to become as self-reliant
  as possible.

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Virtual Tutoring Human Rights
Disabled Persons and the Right to an Education

• International Law
• An International Disability Rights Convention is
  currently being developed by the United Nations
  to ensure that human rights of people with
  disabilities are not abused. This convention is a
  way of ensuring that those who are most likely to
  have their human rights abused and neglected are
  covered specifically in International Human
  Rights Treaties.

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Virtual Tutoring Human Rights
Disabled Persons and the Right to an Education
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 42
U.S.C. 12101 et seq. ADA Title II State and
Local Government Activities Title II covers all
activities of State and local governments
regardless of the government entity's size or
receipt of Federal funding. Title II requires
that State and local governments give people with
disabilities an equal opportunity to benefit from
all of their programs, services, and activities
(e.g. public education, employment,
transportation, recreation, health care, social
services, courts, voting, and town meetings).
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Virtual Tutoring Human Rights
Disabled Persons and the Right to an Education
Canada Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
15. (1) Every individual is equal before and
under the law and has the right to the equal
protection and equal benefit of the law without
discrimination and, in particular, without
discrimination based on race, national or ethnic
origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or
physical disability.
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Virtual Tutoring Human Rights
Disabled Persons and the Right to an Education
Canada Alberta Human Rights, Citizenship and
Multiculturalism Act 4 No person shall (a)
deny to any person or class of persons any goods,
services, accommodation or facilities that are
customarily available to the public, or (b)
discriminate against any person or class of
persons with respect to any goods, services,
accommodation or facilities that are
customarily available to the public, because of
the race, religious beliefs, colour, gender,
physical disability, mental disability,
ancestry, place of origin, marital status,
source of income or family status of that person
or class of persons or of any other person or
class of persons.
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Virtual Tutoring Human Rights
Disabled Persons and the Right to an Education
Australia Disability Discrimination Act
(1992) Education (1) It is unlawful for an
educational authority to discriminate against a
person on the ground of the person's disability
or a disability of any of the other person's
associates (a) by refusing or failing to accept
the person's application for admission as a
student or (b) in the terms or conditions on
which it is prepared to admit the person as a
student. (2) It is unlawful for an educational
authority to discriminate against a student on
the ground of the student's disability or a
disability of any of the student's associates
(a) by denying the student access, or limiting
the student's access, to any benefit provided by
the educational authority or (b) by expelling
the student or (c) by subjecting the student to
any other detriment.
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Virtual Tutoring Human Rights
Disabled Persons and the Right to an Education
Australia Disability Discrimination Act
(1992) Education (continued) (3) This section
does not render it unlawful to discriminate
against a person on the ground of the person's
disability in respect of admission to an
educational institution established wholly or
primarily for students who have a particular
disability where the person does not have that
particular disability. (4)This section does not
render it unlawful to refuse or fail to accept a
person's application for admission as a student
at an educational institution where the person,
if admitted as a student by the educational
authority, would require services or facilities
that are not required by students who do not have
a disability and the provision of which would
impose unjustifiable hardship on the educational
authority.
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End

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