A truly inclusive society calls for an equally inclusive education. It is an answer to the expectations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, whose 60th anniversary we celebrate these days.

The declaration states: "Everyone has the right to education... Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace. Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children" (art. 26).

States are called upon to respond to the task of inclusiveness. In other words, all nations and their specialised agencies must engage in "the integral development of the human being, economic and social progress and development of all peoples".

All nations are called to recognise that the human person is the central subject of the development process and that development policy should therefore make the human being the main participant and beneficiary of development.

This kind of 'human' and 'integral' approach should characterise the policies and plans directed to achieve the second of the Millennium Development Goals: universal primary education. Much progress has been made. But in sub-Saharan Africa, about 38 million children of primary school age are still out of school. Around the globe, in most refugee camps and in detention centres, the education of children and youth remains quite inadequate.

The report of the World Commission on Culture and Development 'Our Creative Diversity', continues to ring true: "In an unequal world, the challenges of education for victimised or underprivileged children call for flexible approaches. Education should reach the unreached, and include the excluded."

While a knowledge-based economy offers access to decent employment, it is even more important to promote social cohesion, mutual acceptance and appreciation of diversity.

The Holy See shares an inclusive approach to education since it does not reduce culture to a subsidiary position as a mere promoter of economic growth but opens the person to others and to all the inner aspirations of the human heart. Development divorced from its human or cultural context is development without a soul.

Vatican Council II's declaration on Christian education states: "All men of every race, condition and age, since they enjoy the dignity of a human being, have an inalienable right to an education that is in keeping with their ultimate goal, their ability, their sex, and the culture and tradition of their country, and also in harmony with their fraternal association with other peoples in the fostering of true unity and peace on earth."

In the practice of the Catholic Church, this inclusive approach is translated into thousands of schools, universities and other educational institutions.

Inclusion works through the promotion of a society that respects the dignity of every human person and goes beyond criteria of efficiency. The present financial crisis is a concrete lesson: only the person that conceives relations with others beyond criteria of productivity and control can value reality in a balanced perspective and assume appropriate responsibility.

This type of education is able to help forming individuals and new generations to social participation, to solidarity, to overcoming exclusion and to critically understand reality.

At the same time, an inclusive education involves a plurality of educational agencies and actors, all guided by the principle of subsidiarity that generates a synergy among family, teachers, professors and educators, young people themselves, non-governmental organisations, churches and religious communities and other persons who, in different ways, contribute to the formative process.

While a more humane and inclusive society should care for the most vulnerable - and attention in educational policies to the right of the child is a significant aspect of this principle - school should constitute an environment in which educators answer to the affective and cognitive needs of the child, not only in transmitting information, but also in being relevant for the children in this delicate phase of their lives.

Educators should also remain aware that they carry out their service in co-operation with parents, who are the first 'educational agency' and have the priority right and duty to educate their children. This convergence of efforts is an evident application of the basic principle of subsidiarity.

Another central goal of any educational policy should consist in thinking and organising the school as an environment in which positive relationships are practised among the various members of the school's community. This educational community is called to promote a school that is a place of integral formation through interpersonal relations based on mutual respect and acceptance.

In this perspective, inclusion is not an ideology that wipes away all differences and loses sight of the human person's situation, history and experiences; this should remain at the centre of every educational programme.

Recently, Pope Benedict XVI observed: "Every true teacher knows that if he is to educate, he must give a part of himself, and that it is only in this way that he can help his pupils overcome selfishness and become in their turn capable of authentic love. In a small child there is already a strong desire to know and to understand, which is expressed in his stream of questions and constant demands for explanations.

"Therefore, an education would be most impoverished if it were limited to providing notions and information and neglected the important question about the truth, especially that truth which can be a guide in life."

Inclusive education finds in this way another important dimension that favours dialogue between persons, peoples and culture in their 'creative diversity'.

An inclusive education embraces all children and youth in their context, and all people dedicated to their formation, in a comprehensive process that combines transmission of knowledge and development of personality. In fact, the fundamental questions any person asks deal with the search for meaning of life, history, change, dissolution, love and transcendence.

At its best, education provides everyone with the tools to contribute a creative participation in community, to reflect and give an appropriate answer to the unavoidable profound questions of the meaning to live with others, to discover one's nature and inherent dignity as spiritual creatures.

This article is based on a speech given by Mgr Tomasi on November 26 during the 48th UNESCO International Conference on Education held in Geneva on the theme 'Inclusive Education: the Way of the Future'.

Archbishop Tomasi is the Holy See's permanent observer to the UN offices and specialised institutions in Geneva.

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