Global Citizenship Course: Right to Education

Education is a fundamental human right and an essential factor for the fulfillment of other rights. Educating girls and boys and enabling them to develop their full potential as people to lead a full and productive life is the primary responsibility of every society. The benefits of education are not exhausted in those who receive them, but extend to society as a whole and affect many different dimensions of progress, empowerment and collective well-being.

Quality Education was added as one of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, its objective being to ‘Ensure an inclusive, equitable and quality education and to promote lifelong learning opportunities for all’. This means we, as educators and as Global Citizens, have a responsibility to defend and advocate for the right to a quality education for all.

To support us with this, a group of Global Citizenship experts from the Educate Magis community around the world have put together an online course on Global Citizenship for Educators of our Global Network, including a Module on the Right to Education.

This Module consists of three lessons which take the learner through the history of the right to education, the importance of the right to a quality education and explore some concrete steps we can take to help defend this important human right.

The Module concludes with Reflections, to help the learner gain a deeper understanding of the topic, which can also subsequently be used in class with students.

We invite you and your colleagues to take this module as part of the 5-module course. You can take the modules consecutively, from 1 to 5 or pick out single modules such as this one which you find particularly interesting.

All the well-being of Christianity and of the whole world depends on the proper education of youth” – Pedro de Ribadeneira SJ, 1556, writing to Philip II, King of Spain on behalf of St. Ignatius of Loyola.