The CESCR Committee has also fleshed out features of key rights, articulating that social programs to realise rights include requirements of ‘availability, accessibility, acceptability The essential features of the right to education are set out in the CESCR Committee’s general comment No. 13 (1999): Education in all its forms and at all levels shall exhibit the following interrelated and essential features: (a) Availability: functioning educational institutions and programmes have to be available in sufficient quantity; (b) Accessibility: educational institutions and programmes have to be accessible to everyone. Accessibility has the following overlapping dimensions: • Non-discrimination: education must be accessible to all, especially the most vulnerable groups, in law and fact, without discrimination; • Physical accessibility: education has to be within safe physical reach, either by attendance at some reasonably convenient geographic location (e.g., a neighbourhood school) or via modern technology (e.g., access to a ‘distance learning’ programme); Many elements of ICESCR obligations, and some full ICESCR rights, can be immediately implemented, in the same way as civil and political rights – for example, the right to join trade unions, and to strike.24 With respect to elements of rights that require more time and resourcing, ICESCR recognises that full implementation of ICESCR rights may not 118 and adaptability’. An example of how this is understood in application to the right to education is outlined in the next text box, and the right to health in the subsequent text box. • Economic accessibility: education has to be affordable to all: whereas primary education shall be available ‘free to all’, States parties are required to progressively introduce free secondary and higher education; (c) Acceptability: the form and substance of education, including curricula and teaching methods, have to be acceptable (e.g., relevant, culturally appropriate and of good quality) to students and, in appropriate cases, parents; (d) Adaptability: education has to be flexible so it can adapt to the needs of changing societies and communities and respond to the needs of students within their diverse social and cultural settings. When considering the appropriate application of these ‘interrelated and essential features the best interests of the student shall be a primary consideration.23 be immediately possible. A further type of obligation on States is therefore to take steps, to the maximum of their available resources, to progressively realise the rights. ‘Progressive realisation’ fulfils the aspects of ICESCR rights that are not covered by the elements listed above. Article 2.1 states: