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‘Everyone has the right to education.’

Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights By Taif Alkhudary, UCL Friends of Palestine

‘Right to Education’ (r2e) week is a student led campaign founded by Birzeit University in the West Bank. It aims to raise awareness of the innumerable obstacles facing students in Palestine today and by so doing incite change. The checkpoint system installed in the West Bank by the occupying regime has made the short journey from home to school or university almost insurmountable. Everyday students and teachers alike must pass through checkpoints where they are often delayed, prevented from crossing and abused. Israel’s constant insurrections into Gaza, on the other hand routinely bring the education system to a complete halt. During ‘Operation Protective Edge’ 118 schools were damaged and 22 destroyed. This has meant that nearly half a million children have had to start school late.

This year, ‘Right to Education’ week will be held at universities all over the UK the week beginning 24th November. As a member of UCLU Friends of Palestine, I have been helping to organise r2e events for almost a month now, (sourcing speakers, filling out stacks of forms, contemplating whether to bribe the knitting society into giving up the union common room etc…). It occurred to me whilst doing all this, the irony embedded in the fact that while our events champion the principle of education for all, they will only be attended by a privileged few. As such this year, as society we will endeavour to do more outreach work, giving students in local schools the opportunity to access the knowledge that we are so fortunate to have.

My thoughts then wondered to the Free Education demonstration taking place on 19th November, the week before our r2e events kick off. This got me thinking about the impediments to education here in the UK. It opened up a few questions for me that I would like to put to you as the sorts of basic things we should be asking.

– Why is it that we must pay £9000 a year to attend university, when countless other European countries do not charge tuition fees at all?

– Why is that a numerical figure determines whether a student is eligible for a grant? Why is it okay that this effaces their individual circumstances?

– And finally: Why is it that the quality of education we receive is dependent on what we can afford to pay?

I am not trying to suggest here, that the struggles faced by Palestinian and British students are directly comparable. For to do so would result in a very problematic erasure of the of the specific socio-political context of both. However, what I am arguing is that not only should we all have access to education, we should also all have access to the same standard of education. This is why UCLU Friends of Palestine and I will be marching on 19th November.