72 Ethics in Higher Education: Values-driven Leaders for the Future
The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights (CESCR) has attempted to give content to the right to education
in General Comment 13. In this regard, it provides that the right to
education, in all its forms and at all levels, including higher education,
must have the following interrelated and essential features:^13
- Availability – which requires functioning educational institutions
and programmes have to be available in sufficient quantity within
the jurisdiction of the state; - Accessibility – which requires educational institutions and
programmes have to be accessible to everyone, without
discrimination, within the jurisdiction of the state. This has three
overlapping dimensions: non-discrimination, which requires that
education must be accessible to all, especially the most
vulnerable groups; physical accessibility, which requires that
education must be within safe physical reach; and economic
accessibility, which requires that education must be affordable to
all; - Acceptability – which requires that the form and substance of
education, including curricula and teaching methods, have to be
acceptable (e.g. relevant, culturally appropriate and of good
quality) to students; and - Adaptability – which requires that education must be flexible so
that it can adapt to the needs of changing societies and
communities, and respond to the needs of students within their
diverse social and cultural settings.
General Comment 13 states further that “[w]hen considering the
appropriate application of these ‘interrelated and essential features’ the
13
Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, “General Comment 13:
The right to education” (Twenty-first session, 1999), U.N. Doc. E/C.12/1999/10
(1999), at paras 6 and 17.