Equality and Human Rights
Equality and Human Rights are mainstream responsibilities for the Department of Education.
Equality
Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 requires Public Authorities (including: the Department of Education, Education and Library Boards the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools etc) to carry out all their functions
- With due regard to the need to promote equality of opportunity in respect of religious belief, political opinion, gender, race, disability, age, marital status, dependents and sexual orientation.
- With regard of the desirability of promoting good relations between persons of different religious beliefs, political opinion and racial group.
The Department’s Equality Scheme explains how we do this.
Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)set out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected.
There are 30 Articles in the UDHR describing fundamental human rights and Art. 26 is the right to education.
After the UDHR the UN went on to develop specific Conventions to cover a range of issues e.g. Disability, Racism, Women’s rights.
Links:
Audit of Inequalities and Action Plan PDF 512KB
