Lecture: Right to education (by Professor Qu Xiangfei)

March 19, 2015 - Professor Qu Xiangfei, Associate Researcher at the International Law Institute, Academy of Social Sciences, gave a lecture to the human rights law students. Professor Ban Wenzhan and Professor Yang Qinhuo attended the lecture.

The lecture addressed from four major perspectives.

Firstly, Professor Qu distinguished the right to education from the right to study, which has been brought up by some scholars recently. These two rights have different subjects. After this, she gave an overview of the development of the right to education.

Next, Professor Qu talked about the source of the right to education in the international human rights law. It can be divided into three aspects: global level, regional level and the commentaries to the conventions. She also talked about the regultion of the right to education in China. Specifically, it can be found in the Chinese constitution, several laws and regulations.

The third subjects raised during the lecture refers to Articles 13 and 14 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The questions here include: the subject, the scope, the rights and obligations of individuals, national responsibilities, and what standards the state parties should provide.

Finally, Professor Qu demonstarted how the right to education is working in practice. She used examples of three different levels: pre-school, school and graduate education. Many relevant cases were introduced by the professor.

Students raised many questions during the lecture, which created a heated discussion. Throughout the lecture, the students acquired a better understanding of the right to education. More importantly, this lecture really provided good guidance and inspiration for the students to use in their future study and research.

Written by Guo Chao