The next step: Human rights in education It is easy to imagine children happily agreeing that war should remain only a word in a violence-free school, coming from a loving family and a prosperous community. For children like Civilian, war was and remains the reality, and ‘violence-free’ is only a word. What education could do for him is an open question, much as whether he did – and will – have much of it. Those children who do have access to schooling may not get the education that would encompass cherishing peace or respecting human rights. They may be sitting in a class with over a hundred other children, taught by an overworked and underpaid teacher, beaten each time they fail to do their sums properly. An assumption that getting children to attend school equals the realization of their right to education thus often conflicts with reality. Primer No. 4 looks into human rights in education, arguing that schooling does not necessarily amount to education. It summarizes how human rights in education should be safeguarded, acknowledging that in many countries they are not recognized as yet. Our failure to secure schooling for all children tends to focus our attention on the needed but lacking funds and schools, keeping us focused on the means. Securing the means does not automatically mold education towards desired ends, provided that there was a global agreement on what education is for. The field of human rights is a rare exception in having defined both the ends and the means of education hence there is a legal framework to guide education Discussing human rights in education is thus necessary. Without a clear vision of the inter-relationship between the right to education and rights in education, promoting human rights education or human rights through education remains impossible. What happens in schools is seldom examined through the human rights lense, the most important reason being that the notion of rights in education is new. Evidence of abuses of education and in education is not systematically collected and remains largely unknown and facilitates the perpetuation of abuses. Right to Education Primers No. 3 43