CRC/GC/2001/1
page 2
Appendix
GENERAL COMMENT 1 (2001): THE AIMS OF EDUCATION
The significance of article 29 (1)
1.
Article 29, paragraph 1, of the Convention on the Rights of the Child is of far-reaching
importance. The aims of education that it sets out, which have been agreed to by all States
parties, promote, support and protect the core value of the Convention: the human dignity innate
in every child and his or her equal and inalienable rights. These aims, set out in the five
subparagraphs of article 29 (1) are all linked directly to the realization of the child’s human
dignity and rights, taking into account the child’s special developmental needs and diverse
evolving capacities. The aims are: the holistic development of the full potential of the
child (29 (1) (a)), including development of respect for human rights (29 (1) (b)), an enhanced
sense of identity and affiliation (29 (1) (c)), and his or her socialization and interaction with
others (29 (1) (d)) and with the environment (29 (1) (e)).
2.
Article 29 (1) not only adds to the right to education recognized in article 28 a qualitative
dimension which reflects the rights and inherent dignity of the child; it also insists upon the need
for education to be child-centred, child-friendly and empowering, and it highlights the need for
educational processes to be based upon the very principles it enunciates.1 The education to
which every child has a right is one designed to provide the child with life skills, to strengthen
the child’s capacity to enjoy the full range of human rights and to promote a culture which is
infused by appropriate human rights values. The goal is to empower the child by developing his
or her skills, learning and other capacities, human dignity, self-esteem and self-confidence.
“Education” in this context goes far beyond formal schooling to embrace the broad range of life
experiences and learning processes which enable children, individually and collectively, to
develop their personalities, talents and abilities and to live a full and satisfying life within
society.
3.
The child’s right to education is not only a matter of access (art. 28) but also of content.
An education with its contents firmly rooted in the values of article 29 (1) is for every child an
indispensable tool for her or his efforts to achieve in the course of her or his life a balanced,
human rights-friendly response to the challenges that accompany a period of fundamental change
driven by globalization, new technologies and related phenomena. Such challenges include the
tensions between, inter alia, the global and the local; the individual and the collective; tradition
and modernity; long- and short-term considerations; competition and equality of opportunity; the
expansion of knowledge and the capacity to assimilate it; and the spiritual and the material.2
And yet, in the national and international programmes and policies on education that really count
the elements embodied in article 29 (1) seem all too often to be either largely missing or present
only as a cosmetic afterthought.
4.
Article 29 (1) states that the States parties agree that education should be directed to a
wide range of values. This agreement overcomes the boundaries of religion, nation and culture
built across many parts of the world. At first sight, some of the diverse values expressed in
article 29 (1) might be thought to be in conflict with one another in certain situations. Thus,