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Education Is a Human Right, Not a Commercial Service

Talal Abu-Ghazaleh
I believe that education is a fundamental human right no less important than other rights such as the right to life and freedom. It should not remain confined by geography, financial capacity, or administrative restrictions. Quality education is a right for everyone, not a privilege granted to a fortunate few.
Therefore, and based on my experience in building educational institutions, particularly digital ones, it has become necessary to reconsider the global education system, which still reflects a clear imbalance in equity. Major institutions continue to define the standards of “quality education” and control access to it through high costs and complex travel procedures, while millions of young people in countries of the Global South are deprived of equal opportunities to obtain quality education. This unfair equation not only creates a knowledge gap but also deepens economic and humanitarian disparities among nations, keeping education a privilege rather than a fundamental human public right.
From this perspective, we are launching the Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Global Digital Polytechnic (TAG.GDP) as a global digital educational project that places people at the center of the educational process and breaks the traditional barriers that have long limited access to knowledge. In our philosophy, education is neither a trade nor a profit-making industry; rather, it is a purely humanitarian service aimed at empowering people, wherever they may be, with knowledge, skills, and the ability to work and produce. Just as we previously advocated for the recognition of internet access as a human right, we now affirm that digital education is a natural extension of this right, one whose impact extends beyond individuals’ knowledge to their life, future, and the future of their country.
Within this framework comes the TAG.GDP Polytechnic project, which we are working to launch soon as part of our social responsibility. It will represent a modern, applied digital educational model that directly connects knowledge with the labor market and graduates learners who are capable of becoming productive workers immediately upon graduation. This model does not separate theoretical knowledge from practical application; rather, it integrates them into a single pathway that keeps pace with the needs of the modern economy and provides young people with a genuine opportunity to enter the labor market efficiently, without delay or gaps between learning and employment.
The digital education we offer is based on clear principles: eliminating visa barriers, enabling learning from anywhere at any time, reducing costs to the lowest possible level, and standardizing the quality of educational content so that every student, anywhere in the world, receives the same opportunity and the same level of knowledge. In this way, education is transformed from a system restricted by time and place into an open, fair, and inclusive framework.
We believe that education is the natural extension of the basic right of every human being to access the internet and that empowering people through knowledge is the true gateway to enabling them to live with dignity. Therefore, the TAG.GDP project is not merely an educational initiative but a civilizational vision that seeks to redefine education in the twenty-first century, making it a right accessible to every human being without exception, restrictions, or barriers.
Accordingly, transforming the concept of applied digital education into a tangible global reality will make knowledge a tool for justice, progress, and human dignity.