The gap between first world countries and developing countries began as an uncrossable schism, and has worsened with time. In many third world countries, military juntas or cabals change hands frequently, destabilizing the entire government apparatus and with it, education. This has an exacerbating effect– the education of the population cannot take place in such dangerous environs, and an uneducated population is more susceptible to revolution and oppression.

Is education a human right?
When we consider what falls under the scope of human rights, it is hard to see how education– the steady maturation of a population’s intelligence, capacity for critical thinking and ability to behave humanely– does not qualify. The twentieth century proved this to be unequivocally true– whether Cuba, North Korea, a host of African nations or others, the degree to which education of the population is withheld is proportionate to the amount of oppression, control, despotism and human rights violation.

What role does education play?
Education is not an accidental participant in this exchange; even in Russia and China, textbooks were rewritten to color nationalism positively and tarnish the image of rebels. Education is the key to giving third world nations a first world chance. It allows populations to reform and regulate themselves from within, using their own cultural and social prerogatives to achieve peace instead of imposing imperialistic or anachronistic ideologies from well-intentioned first world strangers.

It allows a population to develop and exercise critical apparatuses like newspaper, radio, tele-media, and the internet much more effectively. In total, education augments the lives of human beings, and the lack of it deprives them of the ability to function at a basic level in the modern world. As such, education must be considered and is a human right.

Poverty can be found all over the world, it is not just for poor countries, although these countries happen to have a higher percentage of hunger and food insecurity in the world compared to other more developed countries.
Poverty statistics say that 25,000 people die every day of hunger. This figure is mind blowing when you think about it.

Dying of hunger is something that many people cannot wrap their minds around the concept. With so many charities, food for the poor programs, and so much help that is being sent overseas, this problem continues.
Hunger seems to be tied to poverty, and to combat one you have to combat the other. Education plays a big role on this, as the public has to be aware of the problem so agencies can keep helping.

In addition, education is needed in the countries that suffer from poverty, so people can take a proactive role in fighting their own poverty. How do people care when they are so hungry that their main focus is to find something to eat? This is the reason that these three issues Poverty, Hunger, and Education go hand in hand along with the many programs in place.

For these programs to be effective, these three issues have to be tackled together. Otherwise, we are just going in circles and we will not be able to fight hunger and poverty, make food insecurity disappear at last, and have the most effective food for the poor programs in place.

First, we should have a look at some goals pursued by the Bologna accords:

• accepted standards all over Europe concerning academic degrees
• comparable and compatible academic degrees throughout Europe
• lower University drope-out rates
• higher student mobility

Given these four important aspects of that Bologna declaration we have to realize that the Bologna process has failed. Most universities are occupied in Germany where the education system seems to have many defects – according to thousands of students.

Many German universities decided to transform their traditional degrees “Magister” and “diploma” into a bachelor-/ master system which respectively consists of six and four semesters. The courses of study were effectively tranformed from a four year course to a three year course. Consequences are: students would have to learn more in a shorter period of time.

Given the fact that in some German Federal States tuition fees of up to 500 Euros per semester were introduced some years ago, the pressure on many students has grown. Surveys showed that tuition fees would prevent some high-school graduates from studying at universities. Critical voices stated a social selection caused by the fees.

Further points of criticism are:

• democratic participation for students at schools and universities is too low
• the influence of the economy on education is too strong
• courses at university are too inflexible

Most  students, professors and politicians  agree on the last point: university seems to turn into another place of  “teaching like in school”.  The question is: how could that Bologna process be modified? Neither politicians, nor professors or anybody else appears to be responsible for the developments during the last years – as usual.

But this time the student protests probably won´t stop too early: they have become a strong movement and are fighting for real improvements – for their human right to education.