A/HRC/16/53 21. Besides providing students with the necessary knowledge and information in different disciplines, school education can facilitate a daily exchange between people from different ethnic, economic, social, cultural and religious backgrounds. The possibility of having face-to-face interaction of students on a regular basis is not less important than the development of intellectual skills, because such regular interaction can promote a sense of communality that goes hand in hand with the appreciation of diversity, including diversity in questions of religion or belief. Experiencing the combination of communality and diversity is also a main purpose of interreligious and intercultural dialogue projects. Thus the school provides unique possibilities for such a dialogue to take place on a daily basis, at a grass-roots level and during the formative years of a young person’s development. 22. The Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (2001) promotes the purpose of an “inclusive society”13 in which people from different ethnic or social backgrounds can participate on the basis of equality. From a different angle, this goal has recently been taken up in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, in which the principle of inclusion features as a key concept closely related to other principles, such as respect for personal autonomy and appreciation of diverse life situations. It is in such a complex understanding that the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities lays down the right to inclusive education.14 Although this right explicitly relates to students with disabilities, it is at least worth discussing whether and how the principle of inclusive education could also be applied to other contexts, including diversity in religion or belief in the school life. Inclusive education pertaining to the issue of religious diversity would make use of the school as a place in which students of different religious or non-religious orientations get to know each other in a natural way. 23. Freedom of religion or belief and school education, however, require very careful handling. The main reason is that the school, besides providing a place of learning and social development, is also a place in which authority is exercised. It is during their school education that young people receive, or fail to receive, crucial diplomas on which their future life and work opportunities may depend to a large extent. Moreover, especially for young children, the teacher may represent an authority with an enormous influence, coming close to, and sometimes even superseding, the authority of parents and other adult family members. Hence school life can put persons in situations of unilateral dependency or particular vulnerability. Students may feel exposed to pressure exercised by fellow students, teachers or the school administration. Parents may fear that the school could alienate their children from the family tradition. At any rate, more so than other societal institutions the school can trigger a host of contradictory emotions ranging from hopes and high expectations to scepticism and various fears. 24. For members of minorities, including religious or belief minorities, such ambivalent feelings are typically more pronounced. On the one hand, they may hope that school education can contribute to dispelling negative stereotypes and prejudices from which they may personally suffer. On the other hand, members of religious minorities – students as well as parents – may fear discrimination, mobbing or pressure in the school, perhaps even 13 14 8 See A/CONF.189/12 and Corr. 1, chap. I, paras. 6 and 96. See art. 24, para. 1: “States Parties recognize the right of persons with disabilities to education. With a view to realizing this right without discrimination and on the basis of equal opportunity, States Parties shall ensure an inclusive education system at all levels and life long learning directed to: (a) The full development of human potential and sense of dignity and self-worth, and the strengthening of respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms and human diversity; (b) The development by persons with disabilities of their personality, talents and creativity, as well as their mental and physical abilities, to their fullest potential; (c) Enabling persons with disabilities to participate effectively in a free society.”