Characterising the Right to Education: Psychosocial Support in Schools

Résumé

Can the scope of section 29 of the Bill of Rights include provisioning for psychosocial support to learners? This article examines the development of the law as it relates to the interpretation and application of the right to basic education contained in section 29(1)(a) of the Constitution. It argues that there is a jurisprudential approach that lends a dynamic quality to the right to basic education. It is this capacity for dynamism that makes section 29 an incredible tool for transformative change. Importantly, the right to basic education has a quality dimension that allows it to be responsive to learning needs, including those learning needs that are of a social and psychological nature. As such, claims to psychosocial support for learning can be grounded in section 29(1)(a). For the purposes of the provisioning of psychosocial support, this article also comments on the close relationship between section 29(1)(a) and the rights of the child as contained in section 28(1)(c). Section 28 entitles children to a wide range of services that are critical to their welfare, and where the delivery of psychosocial support for learning requires technical knowledge, resources, and infrastructure that fall beyond the capabilities of primary caregivers, the state is obliged under both provisions to provide psychosocial support. Importantly, the right to education cannot be fully realised where the social and psychological needs of the child are unmet.

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