Challenges and rights on educations. Question of policies? Cuba and Angola contexts

Abstract

The right to education constitutes the principle axis in the struggle for a better future. Its relationship to social change and contribution for the mitigation of vulnerabilities places it on a relevant plain for transformation and development. It is necessary to deepen understanding of the right to education and its challenges, and situate the central aspects of right to education from the sociological perspective that focuses the relationship between education and society. The analyses of the context surrounding the right to education in Cuba, in Latin America, reveals the challenges and Cuban experiences, from which it is possible to interpret results from the case studies in other nations. This has contributed to approaching the African context, particularly Angola. The data analysis about education in both countries which expresses the levels of human development, offers a relationship between social policy and the realities that are expressed starting with the analyses of the socio-historical context. The scenario of the southern part of the globe shows a reality that demands more attention and invites society’s researchers to focus their aim, detached from a Eurocentric focus, where adequate studies about the social context and its relation to the educational, cultural, political and economic reality in which it resides prevail. The analysis if the challenges for the right to education based on the Cuban experience make it possible to read the case of Sumbe, Angola. Understanding the socio-historical context and observing the development of social policies in Cuba and Angola make it possible to examine and analyze the situation closely. Responding to the following questions was central to the investigation: How has the international debate about the right to education and its relationship to the dimensions of gender and territory evolved? How have social policies and the socio-historical context determined educational policies and, at the same time, explained the conditions of inequality and development that nations demonstrate? The political volition of governments, education and its protagonists, associated with an analysis of the context and the social policies for understanding the right to education are essential elements in our view.