Child’s right to life is more valuable than to education

Saving lives at the expense of education is justifiable. Not even you have the right to take away your life; hence the law on suicide. Kenyans have a right to protect their children’s lives first as a matter of priority through their knowledge on the measures for fighting Covid-19.

With the enforced long holiday, parents have either resorted to home-schooling or online studies to keep their children abreast of matters academia.

Online learning

Of concern is the constant risk of the infiltration of live online learning sessions by hackers who post graphic adult content that can harm our children. Therefore, it cannot be a solid argument to say online studies is 100 per cent free of harm.

But there is a greater risk to life: Covid-19. Staying at home is the best option for our school children.

Every child has a constitutional right to free and compulsory basic education and the government has to embrace affirmative action programmes, and ensure youth access relevant education and training. The Children Act complements that right. The Basic Education Act tasks the State to ensure marginalised, vulnerable and disadvantaged children are not discriminated against in education access.

Schools don’t hire nurses

A former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, Katarina Tomasevski, proposed that, for education to be a meaningful right, it has to abide by four As: Available, accessible, acceptable and adaptable.

But the as that Kenyans can strike a consensus on as being in their system is “acceptable” and, perhaps, “available” while “accessibility” and “adaptability” are still a long shot.

Most of our schools don’t hire nurses and so lack the capacity to monitor the students’ health at school and are also incapacitated in running Covid-19 tests on staff, including teachers. Achieving social distancing may involve infrastructural adjustments, a challenge due to financial constraints.

Education must be adaptable to the needs and changes in society. For online studies to be successful, then accessibility to the necessary technology and electricity is mandatory.

Cultural discrimination

Education institutions should be barred from cultural discrimination and, at all reasonable times, physically accessible by children. People who hold diverse religious beliefs must have equal rights and no person or religious organisation should deny others their rights, discriminate against them or impose their views on them.

There is equality in rights but some are non-derogable — not to be violated even through legal exceptions. Our laws allow limitation of the right to life, hence the clamour to abolish the death penalty. Kenya’s Bill of Rights upholds the sanctity of life.

The government’s order for schools to be reopened in January, when it projects that the virus will be under control, has helped it to sufficiently protect lives. This is a win-win scenario for parents and the government and boosts the Covid-19 war.

Mr Ayuo is a legal researcher and tutor. [email protected].