Distance education and children’s rights: New dimensions of school exclusion during the COVID-19 outbreak
Abstract
The aim of this article is to analyze distance learning, which was introduced in Poland during the COVID-19 outbreak, in the context of children’s rights. The main issues discussed herein are connected with incidents of excluding students and failing to respect their rights. The right to education of those children who do not have the conditions to fulfill their obligation of compulsory online schooling is not our only concern. This article also touches on the issue of school’s insufficient guardianship and protective function and, in consequence, the aggravation of inequalities between people with lower and higher family income. The analysis is based on the authors’ appeal that was disseminated in April 2020 by Komitet Ochrony Praw Dzieci [Committee for the Protection of Children’s Rights] and the Ja Teacher’ka [I Teacher] foundation.
The study was based on a perusal of the literature on the subject and a legal and normative scrutiny of the binding legal acts on distance learning. The first section presents the school as an institution of normative inclusion in the historical and contemporary perspectives. In the second part, we shed light on areas of exclusion in the context of the changes introduced in connection with the pandemic.
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