Abstract
This article analyses the situation of the right to education in Europe, based on a comparative study of the recommendations made by the Committee on the Rights of the Child with respect to the reports submitted to the Committee by the European States Parties. The primary sources used are the Committee’s concluding observations and the individual reports of the States Parties. The article analyses some of the educational aspects underlying the Convention on the Rights of the Child, such as obstacles to the enjoyment of the right to education, access to that right, discrimination in education, school discipline and human rights-based education. The conclusions suggest consideration of a European map, highlighting certain difficulties in such areas as access to education, discrimination against particular groups and a certain ambivalence in relation to the use of corporal punishment.
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Notes
An exhaustive study of these international instruments and of the situation in different countries of the world may be found in UNESCO (2000).
For this work we have analysed the recommendations made by the Committee to all the European countries, contained in their reports under United Nations reference CRC/C/15/ with the respective addenda. The documents are accessible on the web page of the Committee on the Rights of the Child at http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/crc/index.htm, while the NGO reports are available at http://www.crin.org. The number shown in brackets after each country corresponds to the recommendations made by the Committee on the first report of the State Party (1) or the second report (2). For a more complete analysis of all the rights covered by the Convention on the Rights of the Child for European countries, see Dávila and Naya (2003), Ruxton (2005) or more recently Instituto degli Innocenti (2006).
With reference to the European case, see: Commission of the European Communities. 2003. Equal opportunities for people with disabilities: A European Action Plan. Ref. COM (2003) 650 final. Further reference may be made to http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/enable/history.htm and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities adopted on 13 December 2006.
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Acknowledgement
This article is part of research funded by the Ministry of Education and Science (Project no. SEJ2004-01690/EDUC).
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Original language: Spanish.
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Dávila, P., Naya, L.M. Education and the rights of the child in Europe. Prospects 37, 357–367 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-008-9035-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-008-9035-4