Podcast: Voices of change with Farida Shaheed

“I think the direction in which we need to go is for us to restructure education,” said Farida Shaheed, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human right to education. “I want it to be open. I want there to be much more appreciation of our artistic expressions. Education has to be rounded. It has to be based on human rights and it needs to explore and enable everyone to reach the full potential as human beings, whatever that may be.”

Shaheed discussed the future of the human right to education and other issues as part of Voices of Dignity, a series of interviews with thought leaders and experts on the UN Human Rights Podcast. 

In a wide-ranging discussion that covered not just education, but cultural rights and technology. She had expressed a particular concern about how technology could be robbing children, especially young children, of critical social skills. She described a meeting of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, in which a psychologist presenting before the committee expressed extreme concern about children aged zero to five losing the capacity and ability to socialize, to interact or to mediate human relations.

“That would be a serious problem if we start losing that competency,” she said. “You need to be physically together to understand how to negotiate, how to understand if you have different opinions, how to mediate.”