On The Early Child’s Right To Education

The right to education is the core and aim of modern rule of law in education, simultaneously it is a significant dimension to justify the legitimacy of educational law. This value orientation also applies to the early child’s right to education (ECRE). The research aim of ECRE is to provide an "ideal picture" as theoretical criteria and direction for evaluating and guiding the development of legal system in early childhood education. This research emphasizes on answering the nature and content of ECRE and how to safeguard it. Based on answering these questions, this research answers indirectly the relationship between ECRE and educational law. In order to finish the task, from the perspective of human rights, ECRE has to be researched in the relationship between individual rights and national power, Hayek’s theory of ignorance and dispersive personal knowledge is supported to ECRE as the philosophical foundation, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is used as theoretical criteria to classify the content of ECRE, the family’s right to educate, the society’s right to educate and the state’s right to educate are three ways of safeguarding ECRE.The knowledge from many disciplines is absorbed and used, such as political philosophy, law, anthropology and education in this dissertation. There is a comprehensive research on ECRE in a critical position and the methods like literature research, content analysis, comparison, case study are implemented.ECRE refers to the derivative of individual rights in early childhood education, which is freedom (or interest) to safeguarding the basic learning opportunity and condition of the development of their physical and mental health of children in the age of from inborn to6that family, society and the state have to guarantee. The right to educate refers to the obligations or duties of family, society and country have to rear children. The relationship between the right to education and the right to educate is dependent on the relationship between rights and power.Hayek is one of the most important thinkers in the twentieth century who is a staunch defender of western neo-liberalism. The tacit knowledge, dispersive personal knowledge and ignorance are used as the philosophical foundation for demonstrating personal freedom and social order. On the basis of the spontaneous order, the problem of the legitimacy of his social order is solved. There is a huge gap existed in the evolution and formation of social order from the personal knowledge to individual freedom, which is how people in society "humanize". Because Hayek’s view of knowledge focuses on covering the whole social science, to determine the basis of Hayek’s theory of knowledge as ECRE is a reliable starting point here. In the view of Hayek’s ignorance, the tacit child’s view is more dominant than the visible child’s view, the ignorant child’s view plays a more fundamental role than the omniscient child’s view. The just child’s view is the ideal foundation to guide ECRE. The legal basis of ECRE includes the international declarations, conventions and the conventions on the regional human rights etc; constitutions; the fundamental laws of education etc. In the "Three Charter of Human Rights" and "Convention on the Rights of the Child", ECRE belongs to the putative right. By1989, there were only five (North Korea, Vietnam, Portugal, Russian federation and China) Asian and European countries whose constitution stipulated ECRE clearly. Therefore, ECRE in these countries belongs to the constitutional basic rights.Human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated. In terms of early child’s physical and mental characteristics, the rights characteristics of early child are more integral and indivisible. From different points of view ECRE belongs to an important part of the right to survival, development, protection and participation. However, As an independent part, ECRE itself has become a bundle of different sub-rights. From the three generations of human rights, ECRE is firstly the liberty right, secondly the social right, lastly the right to development. ECRE also has the nature of welfare rights. From the viewpoint of the right to health, ECRE includes natural childbirth right, right to food, the right to space and the right to sport etc. The right to food in contemporary China should highlight the essence of the right to nutrition, for just about newborns to a half year-old-baby, the right to breast-feeding is the main right of the stage. From the view point of the right to learn, ECRE can be divided into the right to education at home, in society and in kindergarten. Among them, the right to education in kindergarten can be further divided into the right to learning opportunity, the right to learning process and the right to unbiased judgment in learning. The right to learning opportunity can be divided into the right to access to neighborhood kindergarten, the right to choose the type of kindergarten and the right to student’s identity. The right to play is core content of ECRE, which is also an important symbol of ECRE that is different from the right to compulsory education. Theoretically, any general rights or sub-rights can be divided infinitely, but there is little meanings in practice. The bottom line of classification is decided by the inner limit of rights and practical difficulties.The implementing of the right to educate is to safeguard ECRE. The right to educate is divided into the family’s right to educate, the society’s right to educate and the state’s right to educate. In the early childhood education stage, the family’s right to educate and the society’s right to educate have the priority, the state’s right to educate is in a auxiliary state, because the state’s right to educate derive from and is serviced to the family’s right to educate and the society’s right to educate. This can be proved from the aspects of the relationship between human rights and state, traditional Chinese culture-psychology structure and Hayek’s two dimension views of social order rules. Family is the basic cell of society and parents’tutoring and raising children comes from their natural tie, so the parent’s right to education is a natural right, which can never be deprived and empowered by national powers but can only be protected. In exerting any rights there is a possibility of absentness or abuse, so it is necessary for other rights to keep the balance and correct it. Under the circumstance that the society is becoming more and more complicated and that the stratification of society becoming larger and larger, it is inevitable and significant for society and state to interfere and support education. The society’s right to educate and the state’s right to educate should not trespass the parent’s right to educate. The only reason to interfere is to protect the freedom to receive education of early child. ECRE as liberty rights need state to fulfill its negative obligations, ECRE as a social right and welfare right need state to fulfill its positive obligations.