In a world strewn with problems and issues, education can be the panacea. When Nelson Mandela said, “Education is the most powerful tool which you can use to change the world”, he spoke with hindsight and managed to see the future simultaneously. Despite being eschewed from every possible angle and celebrated by generations of geniuses and common men, education remains most important and most obvious missing piece of the puzzle for global community.

When Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted in 1948, world had just come out of the biggest man-made catastrophe to date - World War II - and was putting down the brush after last stroke. Leading thinkers of the day deemed it fit to include universal right to education in the list of basic human rights to avoid World War III. Fast forward 70 years and it seems human kind has not managed to live up to its promises outlined in UDHR.

Despite laudable achievement during the first 15 years of new millennium, global community still had not delivered fully on its promise that “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”^.

Having improved education provision rates and having closed gender gap in primary education, from 2015 and onwards world leaders took on improving the quality of education provided via Sustainable Development Goal 4. After all of the efforts to this day 750 million adults are illiterate which is even higher than the number of illiterate children (617 million). Problems are even more evident when certain geographic areas are considered separately. For instance, 27% more girls do not attend primary schools than boys.

Thus, another step was taken to highlight the importance of universally available quality education. United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 73/25 to establish 24th January as International Education Day globally. Resolution co-authored by Nigeria and other member states was adopted on December 3rd, 2018. This shall serve as a reminder and stimuli to view education as the key to solve pending global problems.

This 2020-year theme for International Education Day, Learning for People, Planet, Prosperity and Peace, aptly encompasses every problematic zone and shows how education can play a vital role in resolving the issue. The celebration is expected to reaffirm the role of education as main driver of people out of poverty, basic human right and public good. Integration of education into the lives of every person living on planet is expected to benefit the people and the planet in more than one way. Stakeholders are encouraged to tailor the celebration of the day to fit their audiences and to deliver the message that “learning can empower people, preserve the planet, build shared prosperity, and foster peace”.

Education, peace, prosperity are closely interrelated as are ignorance, conflict and poverty. Causal relationship between these concepts go in multiple directions all of them causing each other. For instance, it has been calculated poverty is expected to rise from 17% to 46% in conflict ridden zones of the world by 2030. Combination of conflict and poverty will block the population of these geographical areas from exercising their right for education. While peace, or lack of it i.e. conflict, directly influences availability, accessibility, and quality of education in short term, education has indirect long-term effect on maintaining peace and direct long term effect on prosperity. Therefore, education of today's young generation is the guarantee of peace for tomorrow.

Celebration of International Day of Education has pulled stakeholders from every part of the world to see the bigger picture. Its apt theme has encompassed full vitality and influence range of education. While this observance reminds the world of the achievements in education, peace, and prosperity, it also allows to look ahead through the lens of obstacles they will peg back all the progress made to this day back to its last century level unless acted upon. Thus, International Day of Education is celebration of new challenges.

Robiya Arslonova
Senior specialist
National Centre
of the Republic of Uzbekistan
for Human Rights

* The photo was taken from the internet