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WILMA MORAA ISABOKE
5. affects a girl’s agency, decision-making process, and choices;'?
6. consequences on social capital and institutions.”
Education should be understood as a process of liberation, empowerment,
assimilating knowledge, gaining skills, and embracing values that make a
difference to one’s life and society. It isa human right, a human development issue,
and human security issue. The discussion above on the effects of non-schooling
and the impacts of a girl’s lack of education reiterates education’s significance. It
is indispensable and demonstrates how it is exceptionally interrelated to human
security, human rights, and, at the same time, a human development issue. The
lack of it has dire consequences not only to a girl but to society.
EDUCATION AS A HUMAN SECURITY ISSUE
Traditionally human security has been defined as freedom “freedom from fear
and freedom from want”.”' It is a precondition for human development to ensure
that people can lead a life of dignity. The approach that is human security, and
one that makes it stronger, is that it is participatory, where solutions are based on
identifying people’s needs and finding comprehensively tailored solutions.
For this paper, we will use the definition of human security provided by the
Commission on Human Security as described in “Human Security Now:”
Human security [is] to protect the vital core of all human lives in ways that enhance
human freedoms and human fulfillment. Human security means protecting
fundamental freedoms — freedoms that are the essence of life. It means protecting
people from critical (severe) and pervasive (widespread) threats and situations. It
means using processes that build on people’s strengths and aspirations. It means
creating political, social, environmental, economic, military and cultural systems
that together give people the building blocks of survival, livelihood and dignity.”
Basic education has intrinsic value because it directly affects people’s security.
Literacy is vital in guaranteeing that girls and women can read the information
relating to their rights, access public services, sign contracts, manage businesses,
1 Quentin Wodon et al., Missed Opportunities, 37-41.
2° Quentin Wodon et al., Missed Opportunities, 43-47.
2 UNDP, Human Development Report, Oxford, OUP, 1994, 22.
Commission of Human Security, Human Security Now, New York, NY, Commission of
Human Security, 2003, 4.
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