Protecting Human Rights: the Right to Education in an Epidemic

Abstract

With regard to the history of the constitutional protection of children’s rights, more precisely, the right of children to education, one of the most outstanding dates is 1924. The nearly 100-year-old Geneva Convention is regarded as the fi rst major international document on children’s rights. The Convention was drawn up in the wake of a great international crisis, the First World War, and the ensuing diffi cult economic and social situation, as well as the raging of a large epidemic. The fi ve short and concise points of the Convention are not simply a legal history document on fundamental rights, on which later conventions were built but they are still relevant and convey a clear message today. The Convention does not make any direct reference to the right to education but the idea, the spirit is there in almost every section. Pursuant to the Convention, children should always be helped fi rst in any trouble. All the resources that are necessary for a child’s normal physical and mental development should be ensured, children should be taught to be able to make their own living, and they should be raised in the spirit so that they would put their skills at the service of others in the future.1 What does the concept of education encompass? According to the normative defi nition of UNESCO,