Declaration of Child Rights-Centric Education
For the text of the proposed Declaration of Child Rights-Centric Education, please see the website.
Why do we need a Declaration?
Because the presently mainstreamed system of education wasn't developed out of respect for Human Rights to, in, or through education. It was designed to suppress human rights and fundamental freedoms.
While there are human rights defenders who are striving to provide education in ways that respects the rights of all participants, and especially the rights of children (as expressed in International Human Rights Law as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child), they are relegated as "alternative" providers. This is a nomenclature that cedes power to the mainstream.
To make the case that these "alternatives" should be mainstreamed, it is necessary to make the case for it in terms of human rights law - because it is globally accepted, well-articulated, is under active development, and there are already a variety of actors engaged in it. And that is what the declaration sets out to do.
Can I see a simple version of the Declaration?
International Human Rights law, from its inception, has affirmed that education shall be directed to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. As the discourse on Human Rights evolved, it has consistently reiterated this through various instruments and articulated its meaning with increasing precision and detail.
Nevertheless, this has not produced the intended results in practice, because these aims have been simply superimposed on existing mainstreamed practices of education - which are not centered on human rights (how could they, when they evolved decades, or even centuries, prior?). It is essential that this anomaly be recognized and addressed - by taking steps to fundamentally rework any practice of Education that is in conflict with Human Rights, and especially with Child Rights.
Can the declaration be explained?
Please see this video. Note that this is based on a slimly older version of the Declaration (for the text used in the video, see this PDF) The latest version has the unwieldy sentences in the "Reasoning that" section broken down, and also expands on the instruments to be referred (earlier it was only the General Comment on the Right to be Heard)