Principles
Below you will find CLADE’s Charter of Principles, agreed during the IV Assembly of the Campaign in Panama, on March 22 and 23, 2007 and reviewed in the VIII Assembly of the Campaign in Peru, on October 26 - 29, 2014.
First principle: The assertion of the public responsibility of the State and the exercise of rights.
CLADE declares that education is a fundamental human right that has to be guaranteed to all peoples and persons. Public education is free and secular and the State is the guarantor of rights. The intention is to re-affirm the public nature of state institutions and build a democratic and autonomous government-society relationship. Therefore, CLADE demands:
A- The State’s responsibility and obligation to guarantee rights, and, as consequence, the defense of a State governed by the rule of law, the defense of human rights and people’s rights;
B- The need to design and implement the education policy as a State policy, with long term projection, regardless of the government in power.
C- The defense of education as a public system designed to meet the needs of society, its improvement and not to reduce it to a commodity, and to oppose to the privatization of education institutions.
D- State financing to guarantee the realization of the right to education for all, considering its availability, accessibility, acceptability and adaptability, and civil society watch to ensure the appropriate and efficient use of funds.
Second Principle: Education as a human right that enables the rest of the rights
This principle considers girls, young people and adults as rights holders; promotes interculturality, the interaction of world views under equal conditions; a non sexist education based on gender equality, respect towards gender identity and sexual diversity; the link between citizenship and democracy; a new intergenerational relationship; social and environmental justice; the elimination of all forms of discrimination, the construction of a culture of peace and the non violent resolution of conflicts. The interdependence and indivisibility of the human right to education embodies an integral and intersectoral perspective, with the participation of citizens and social movements.
Third Principle: Democratization and efficiency of the education public system where the following is secured:
- Opening spaces and mechanisms for the substantial participation of the education community and civil society in the design, monitoring and evaluation of education policies;
- Setting transparency and accountability mechanisms by the State, and also by education institutions;
- Strengthening and recognition of the education workers’ role and ensuring decent work. This implies that States need to guarantee working conditions that measure up to the education challenge they face, as well as their inclusion in decision-making processes on education practices and policies;
- Setting up professional development and the teaching career, and guaranteeing the recognition of teachers as rights holders;
- A better link between the outcomes of academic research, the experience in the field and the education policy-making;
- Establishing professional profiles of those assuming public responsibility in the education field, avoiding nepotism and partisan quotas;
- And a better link between the formal education processes and the non-formal and popular education processes promoted by community dynamics and/or social and citizens’ organizations.
Fourth Principle: The search for quality in education processes and programs based on the following criteria:
- Education relevance related to the dimensions of acceptability and adaptability of education; an education that is able to recognize the context and the specificities of each person, and, therefore, is able to promote a variety and flexibility of curricula proposals;
- Assertion of learning processes (and not only schooling indicators) to assess governments’ commitment to education;
- The vision of education as a lifelong learning process and as the key to change and liberation;
- The promotion of affirmative pedagogic actions to overcome discrimination on account of age, sex, gender, ethnicity and race, disability, context of detention, migratory status or displacement, geographic location, nationality and also to build equality, interculturality and respect for diversity;
- Securing universal coverage, related with the dimensions of affordability and accessibility and the implementation of policies to avoid school drop-outs, securing retention and successful learning;
- The search for an increased articulation between education, community and territory, so that the former is at the service of population and human development;
- And the assertion of human rights education as an integral part of the right to education, thus, promoting the development of approaches for the practice of ethics, values, respect among everyone, democracy, equality, honesty, solidarity and dialogue, in all educational aspects.
Fifth principle: Standing for plural and collective action with different civil society actors in the struggle for the realization of the right to public and free education for all, involving children, young people, adults, non-governmental organizations, teachers’ union, education workers’ associations and social movements.