Alliance Programme for
Health, Peace and Social Justice
4. Education For All
4.1. Education is a human right
We stand for complete equality of opportunity in the education system, with the aim of involving all people in a creative process of education. Education is a lifelong process, starting in the home and continuing from nursery, primary school and secondary schools through to colleges, universities and the various types of adult education. The aim of education is not just optimum qualification for work and economic life. In order to build new, socially just economic systems, we need above all to engage in political education which critically evaluates the errors of the past, and educates the critical faculty. To do this we need comprehensive democratisation of the education sector, by means of which students will increasingly acquire the capacity to take on the role of teachers.
4.2 Equality of opportunity
The right to education for all means that we work to break down all barriers that stand in the way of this fundamental right. Children from socially disadvantaged families must have the same access to education as those from wealthier backgrounds. The obstacles that make it difficult for girls and young women to have an equal opportunity of education must also be dismantled. Ultimately there can only be one option for children and young people from immigrant families: that of full integration into the education process, with respect accorded to their respective cultural values.
In our view however, equality of opportunity goes further than this. In order to bring about a socially just world, we must also be aware of the responsibility we all bear for transferring knowledge to disadvantaged developing countries. We propose a comprehensive programme enabling young people and students from developing countries to close the knowledge gap between poor and wealthy, and thus also, in the long term, overcome economic inequality as well. Corresponding exchange programmes will enable young people from the developed world to experience the first-hand reality of poverty and under-development, and perceive their responsibility for developing a just world.
4.3. Democratisation of education
For us, democratisation of education means giving all people unrestricted access to education. A socially just society distinguishes itself from a society that reinforces social differences through the way it relates to its children and young people. In specific terms this means that we work to establish enough nursery places, particularly in socially disadvantaged regions and municipal areas. Comprehensive schools, which help redress social differences between pupils, will become the standard school model in order to exclude inherent barriers to education from the very outset.
We are not intrinsically opposed to private initiatives in the education sector if they educate our children to be critical, creative and mature citizens. However we are radically opposed to privatisation of the education system based on economic and big company interest groups. The founding of so-called “elite universities” to train up a compliant workforce in the interests of multinational companies is something we are decisively opposed to. These “elite universities” merely further reinforce the social injustice that is a characteristic feature of our contemporary world.
4.4. A knowledge and information society
At the beginning of the 21 st century a fundamental change is occurring, from an industrialised to an information society. We must acknowledge that information and knowledge in all their forms will be the most important driving force of the future. Growth of information and transfer of knowledge will be key factors for innovative research, development and thus also for the growth of every national economy.
The new information technologies such as the internet are an outstanding means to meet the challenges of this new era. Mastery and use of these technologies is a precondition for active participation in social and economic life, and will therefore be promoted in all areas of education. Special attention must be given to the fact that appropriation of knowledge should not only serve as preparation for work but also to develop young people’s critical awareness of the background to our world’s major social and political problems.
4.5 Promoting critical and creative education
Education and knowledge do not exist in a value-free vacuum, but always serve particular interests. People need to decide whether they want an education policy that almost exclusively serves the interests of a globalised economy and the expanding power of multinational groups; or whether, instead, we should work together to implement an education policy that enables a healthy, peaceful and just world to develop. In our view there is no alternative to this stark choice.
Developing a new and just world and economic order is impossible without creative people. That is why measures to encourage the critical and creative education of young people are at the core of our programme. The critical faculty is an indispensable precondition for analysing our planet’s current economic, social and political problems. Creativity is the prerequisite for developing new approaches to solving these problems.
4.6 Democratisation of the content of education: enlightenment not obfuscation
The content of education must serve the interests of human beings. Curriculum content which is opposed to these interests must be swiftly removed from syllabuses. For instance, it is no longer acceptable that medical training focuses almost exclusively on imparting knowledge about dangerous, useless pharmaceutical drugs, while knowledge about effective natural remedies is intentionally suppressed in the interests of the pharmaceutical industry.
The content of education must correspond to historical truth, for only those who know the facts of history can shape the future to serve human interests. For instance, it is no longer acceptable that history books still represent the Nazis’ rise to power as a ‘mishap’ of history; that they conceal how the second world war was a campaign of conquest serving the interests of the biggest German economic cartel, the chemicals and pharmaceutical giant IG Farben (Bayer, BASF and Hoechst); that Auschwitz was not only a death camp but also initially a slave camp for Europe’s biggest industrial complex, the 24 square kilometres of IG Auschwitz, a 100% subsidiary of IG Farben; that even after the break-up of the IG Farben cartel and its dismantling into BSF, Bayer and Hoechst, several post-war chancellors were brought to power through the intentional manoeuvres of these commercial groups.
4.7 Promoting science and research in the interests of human beings
Science and research must serve human beings. This principle applies not just to medicine but also to chemistry, biology, economics, law and all other academic disciplines. The concept of “freedom of science and research” has all too often been misused to commandeer whole areas of research to serve the interests of big company groups.
Particularly disreputable is the influence which the pharmaceutical industry exerts on medical faculties and medical training courses, for it touches directly on the fundamental right to life. Financial support from the pharmaceutical industry to doctors applying for a professorship at a medical university (so-called “third-party funds”) is an official criterion for their appointment. In other words, the better their contacts with the pharmaceutical industry, the greater their chance of becoming a professor of medicine. These and other forms of influence by commercial interests on research and science must be swiftly ended.
In developing a new, just economic and social order, the universities will play an important role. Teaching staff and students will bear joint responsibility for ensuring that the training of academics occurs in the interests of all society.