55 Education rights Duncan Wilson Realization of the right to education can have a multiplier effect on the ability to realize other human rights.1 Where education rights are respected, protected and fulfilled, the possibilities for self-realization of, for example, the rights to health,2 work3 and freedom of expression4 will be significantly increased. Yet education is not intrinsically good. In multicultural societies, education can be either divisive or cohesive 5 as was recently shown during the 1990s by the central role education played in the instigation of genocide in Rwanda,6 and in the conflict in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.7 Which of these ends education serves, depends on the extent of respect for minority and indigenous rights within education. As explained in this chapter, the scope of education rights extends beyond equal access to include the contents and means of delivery of education. The levels of governmental obligation being explained in human rights terms as availability, accessibility, acceptability and adaptability – ‘the 4-A scheme’.8 Since the inclusion of the right to education in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948 (Art. 26), it has been incorporated in binding international treaties including the ICERD (Art. 5(e)(v); ICESCR (Arts. 13 and 14); the ICEDAW (Art. 10); the CRC (28 and 29); and regional treaties in Africa,9 the Americas10 and Europe.11 Education rights are also an important element of international law protecting minority and indigenous peoples’ rights and are found in a range of specific instruments.12 The right to education is to be fully realized progressively (moving as expeditiously as possible)13 according to the maximum of the available resources.14 Such available resources include those from the international community, which is obliged to offer assistance where able.15 There is a presumption that any steps a government takes which have the effect of moving further away from full realization of the right to education are incompatible with its obligations,16 and this would include fulfilling the right to education for minorities and indigenous peoples. Standards Minimum core obligations The right to education, like other ESC rights, includes minimum core governmental obligations. These obligations include: