Cultural Diversity and Human Rights: a propos of a minority educational reform

attendance in educational institutions and progression through the
phases and beyond.

Article 28 powerfully expresses the idea of human rights in
general, and the right to education specifically, as universal. Thus
the right to education is an entitlement of all children, with
corresponding state obligations to provide, promote and protect.
However, there are two main difficulties with this claim to
universality. These are, firstly, the endogenous problem of second
generation rights and, secondly, the problem of abstract
universalism in the context of social and structural inequalities.

Thus, the first issue which this abstract universalism obfuscates is
the tension between universal entitlement and the status of
education as a second generation right. Within the human rights
system, second generation rights, that is economic, social and
cultural rights, are to be implemented progressively, in accordance
with levels of socio-economic development and the government’s
economic ability to provide, administer or oversee; in the words of
Article 28 “to achiev[e] this right progressively”. This qualified
obligation of governments with respect to second generation rights
generally, namely progressive compliance, has profound
implications for the universality of the right to education as
entitlement. Most notably, it is an aspiration, an ideal entitlement,
not a real one.

This tension around universality in the context of the gap between
articulation and promulgation of second generation human rights
and their progressive implementation is probably best exemplified

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