SKILLS AND TRAINING

facts from the front, seems almost quaint. While many of us were taught that way and still think of education within those parameters, the reality is fast becoming something quite different.

By Phemelo Segoe, education specialist and marketing manager: Optimi Workplace

We often think about the human right to education as relating to children. We imagine them starting their school careers at a young age and being supported as they progress through the years, ultimately emerging from the system as young adults who have the capacity either to study further or to find employment. This is their right. It is enshrined in the Constitution.

The Constitution, however, clearly stipulates another demographic that is entitled to education: the adult population. “Everyone has the right to a basic education,” states Section 29(1), “including adult basic education.”

Many of these adults live with the effects of our apartheid legacy –opportunity was denied to them by law. Yet even those who started and completed their education in the almost 30 years since we became a democracy often lack