A government that enshrines Section 26.3 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights without the balancing protections for a child's education under Sections 26.1 and 26.2 is failing to protect the rights of children in education. 🧵 #abed #ableg
In particular, I am deeply concerned about allowing for homeschooling with no oversight or guarantees of quality education for children. Articles 28-29 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child set out how education should look - I see no assurances these rights are protected.
I am also concerned about how the language of the parent's prior right will be used down the road - without the balancing provisions for a child's rights, this can be used to justify almost any demand of education systems (consider E.T. vs Hamilton-Wentworth in light of this).
Once again, the focus on parental rights in Alberta education discourses neglects the rights of children themselves. Children are not property - they have rights in themselves, and part of that is the right to an education as described in the UDHR and UNCRC.
You can't pick out bits of these important human rights documents and neglect the parts that are about children themselves. The Choice in Education Act serves to inscribe the rights of parents overtop of the rights of children.
Children's rights are human rights. Alberta committed to protect those rights in 1999, and yet those rights are absent from legislation that governs a substantial part of children's lives. Parents are important in a child's life, but the child must be at the centre of education.
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