Fiji needs to focus on education rights

Fiji and its Pacific neighbours need to ratify the United Nations Convention on Economic, Cultural and Social Rights.

Asia Pacific Human Rights Network Executive Director Ravi Nair said a lot of Pacific Island countries thought it was unnecessary to implement it because it was not important. But this, he said, was a fallacy, “I know Fiji and other Pacific countries have ratified the UN Convention on racial discrimination and that of the Elimination of discrimination and that of the Elimination Discrimination Against Women,” he said.

But the Pacific had not bothered to look at the Convention on Economic, Cultural and Social Rights. “In fact, none of the countries in the Pacific have ratified it,” Mr. Nair said. He stressed that there was an urgency to have the convention ratified because Pacific nations had to be on a par with the global economy. “They must conform to global standard and Pacific countries are a signatory to the Millennium Development Goals.”

Fiji’s Constitution, he said, talked about the rights of education but he asked what that really meant. “Education needs to be accessed by everyone, it must be available to everyone without having to pay a fortune, education must be available to the disabled and the poor,” Mr. Nair explained.

The right to education must be looked at from all avenues, he said. “And governments must look at how this right can be made genuine.”

He said to have the convention ratified, there needed to be a series of studies on education because of the fact that it was a very broad issue.