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Baccalaureate Oral Exam 2009: Series A4-A5
    
Promises Broken

Education is a fundamental right for all children, guaranteed by Articles 28 and 29 of the Convention of the Right of the Child. The goal of universal primary level education has not yet been reached, but many advances have been made. Overall primary enrollment has risen around the world, and the gender gap in primary enrollment has declined, with girls' schooling approaching parity with boys in many parts of the world, although completion rates are still lagging.
Often, the denial of education is directly linked to civil and political rights violations of children such as the illegal employment of children in hazardous and exploitative labor, the detention of children in prisons, and discrimination against children from ethnic, linguistic or religious minority groups, or based on gender, disability or other status. Thus, effective protection of children requires addressing the rights issues for children simultaneously.
Children in poor rural areas often face economic barriers to education that may seem insurmountable. In many communities, even if school fees are not a problem, the costs of a pencil or clothing can keep a child from school. Girls in many countries are frequently kept at home, away from school, to do domestic work, or simply because education of girls is not valued. For parents: "girls are more useful in homes, more careful with small children". In the developing world, 73 million of the 130 million out-of-school children are girls.
The denial of education in and of itself can be devastating for children. What's more, it can lead to continued denial of their rights as children and later, as adults. Without access to education, many children have no choice but to continue working under exploitative, hazardous conditions, and have little hope of ever participating fully in the political life in their societies. Proper education could give them hope for the future and skills to ensure that they have options in life besides living on the streets; laboring under exploitative, hazardous or abusive conditions, or a life of crime.

Adapted from Human Rights Watch, An Assessment of children's Rights on the 10t" Anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Vocabulary:

To lag: to trail behind.
To address: aborder.