ABSTRACT
This chapter clarifies the historical circumstances and the philosophical underpinnings of the emergence of human rights after the Second World War, and presents the key issues raised in United Nations Scientific, Educational and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in discussions about human rights. It examines the meaning that the concept of the right to education had among member states, staff and intellectuals whom UNESCO consulted. The chapter revisits the debates about Article 26 on the right to education of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The UDHR was drafted by the Commission on Human Rights of the United Nations and is not directly related to UNESCO. However, including a section on Article 26 is relevant because the drafting process revealed turf struggles between UNESCO and the Commission on Human Rights, the controversies about the notion of education as a right and UNESCO's standpoint in these debates. The chapter addresses the priorities of UNESCO's educational program in the early years.
