World Student Christian Federation Asia-Pacific Human Rights Justice and Peace (HRJP) Workshop 2013 STATEMENT Voices

from the Margins in an era of commercialization of education: Students Reclaiming Rights to Education for All
We, the delegates from the 16 national movements of Student Christian Movement (SCM) that convened Aug. 24-30, 2013 at the Communication Foundation of Asia, Sta. Mesa, Manila for the World Student Christian Federation Asia Pacific Human Rights, Justice and Peace (WSCF-AP HRJP) Workshop, affirm that education is a right. As a basic human right, education should provide the holistic development to youth and students in the objective of building a better society, defining our role to its based from its actual needs. It should free us be it personally or as part of society from the chains of poverty and oppression, to a truly just and humane world. As stated in the Article 26, Section 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR): Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace. Yet the advent of globalization has pushed education to serve the greed of the few. This present orientation has degraded educations valuable role to a mere requirement, narrowing too much on the individual to escape the crisis suffered by the rest of society. It is run like a business: efficiency in its operations comes first before the service rendered. Youth and students become alienated to critical thinking and learning, all in the name of super profit from fees paid for education to their cheap labor once employed that they actually do not benefit from. The Philippine experience proves to show the perilous state of education. Its policies such as the K12 and the Roadmap for Philippine Higher Education Reform (RPHER) has pushed its schools to further commercialize in adherence to conditions from the debts incurred as a neo-colony and to international standards even if not appropriate to the country. This in turn lead to the privatization of its educational institutions, with rising costs that do not complement with the alltime low income of the Filipino people. While its government cannot provide for the essentials of basic education such as teachers, facilities and supplies, it continued to cut the budget of state universities and colleges (SUCs) and other social services to channel all funding from taxes collected to debt-servicing, militarization, privatization and corruption. The P1 trillion pork barrel of President

Benigno Noynoy Aquino, or lump-sum funds that could only be released in his discretion, is more than enough to provide the peoples demands including accessible and quality education.

When the youth and students show their dissent, the state easily ignores or silences their calls. Aside from the curtailment of basic students rights through stringent student policies, many have become victims of human rights violations: Karen Empeno and Sherlyn Cadapan who are still missing, Maricon Montajes who is at present the yougest political prisoner in the Philippines, and Lordei Hina who was physically attacked and was stabbed in the head alll for their activism in the assertion of the peoples rights and interests. Campuses are being militarized in the attempt to curb the student movement. This has not only robbed away the hopes of the youth, but also their lives. Kristel Tejada, a student from University of the Philippines (UP), took her life March this year because she cannot pay her tuition fee. Many blame her parents and the frailty of her heart and they are indeed factors to consider but conditions exist in society that triggered the decision. It is these conditions that we want to do away with, conditions brought about by a system that made the Philippine education colonial, commercialized and fascist. The whole of Asia Pacific is not exempt to the schemes of globalization, in various forms among the different countries but marching along the same trend. Only a few educational institutions are owned by the government all across the region, and filtering mechanisms are done to minimize the number of students qualified to these institutions like in Thailand, Malaysia and Hong Kong. Best and worst alike, this means accessibility to education is far from reach. The private ones gain most in this set up, while those who cannot afford the formal schooling have to surrender their dreams in order to move on and focus on the need to uplift their lives already in dire crisis. Making basic education compulsory is defeated when government support to schools in far-flung areas is lacking, such as in Indonesia, Myanmar and Nepal. This is aside the fact that many of their people are already too poor to even pay for the basic education of their children, with others choosing to sell their organs or engage in anti-social activities so that they could have money to continue their schooling. Tertiary education in all regions has become a thriving enterprise, earning billions of dollars from tuition fees. Laws, regulations and policies are even crafted to systematize education toward money making. Countries with relatively well-off education system such as in New Zealand have put their thrust to business. Employments relevance is then reduced as a means to income and giving in to the demands of the world market, with stress on the problem of jobs mismatch as in India and Japan and not in their educations orientation. On the other hand, opportunities become limited to those who finish higher degrees in Australia because employers are not willing to pay their skills that definitely deserve higher wages.

Education today also serves to measure ones worth. It is the survival of the fittest: only those on top have the greater chances of living a better life. This competition-driven market has not only watered down educations supposed role, but it has also capitalized on the individual and gave a fragmented sense of progress and development that of which only concerns the I. No wonder suicidal rates in countries such as in South Korea and Taiwan are the highest, reflecting the pressure students get more than the knowledge they ought to gain. In all of the countries, education is simply a training to blind obedience, instilling the sense of employee mentality even at such an early age. Appreciation to subjects taught and their practical application to life is missing in the equation, and success becomes a matter of being embedded in this system, of how investment to education would later rake in income for personal consumption and leaving the others hungry for food and better life. In this light we ask, what is the role of the Christian youth and students: if education is now merely a procedure to put order to the present unjust system at the expense of peoples welfare, how are we going to bring back the real value of education into the hearts and minds of everyone? When there is rampant poverty and oppression, education should be anchored in the basis of justice and peace is needed. To be aware of the situation is a good first step, but we have to take the big leap and act upon it to join the struggle for accessible and quality education through our solidarity as a movement of Christian youth and students for genuine social change, to support the fight of nations already engaged in the campaign for education rights such as in the Philippines. We need an education system that concretely addresses the particular needs for each country to advance and progress as a society. We need an education system that develops us as individuals that work as a collective, responsive to the needs of one another as part of a whole. We need education that will introduce Christs example of service to those in need : the marginalized sectors in our society who are deprived of their basic rights, to the realization of Gods promise of life in all its fullness (John 10:10). Always remember what you have learned. Your education is your life guard it well. PROVERBS 4:13 Yes, education is indeed our life. And because we live life in Gods service, we have to guard it as our basic right not just for ourselves, but for everyone!