Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa was speaking in Doha, in a conversation with the President of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo, about education, an initiative organised by the Education For All foundation in conjunction with the United Nations, before attending the debut game of the Portuguese football team.

The head of state maintained that in order to fulfil the United Nations' 4th Sustainable Development Goal - "access to inclusive, quality and equitable education" - "freedom for everyone, for all" and "social cohesion".

Social cohesion implies "including everyone, including the poor" and also "migrants", it implies "including people with different social, political, economic ideas, even with different orientations - we know that each country has its way of thinking - but even sexual and gender orientations," he added.

With regard to freedom, he said: "Of course, here we only have men's football teams. But, for example, in Portugal the majority of higher education students are women, the majority of PhDs are women, we are above the European average".

"Human rights are social rights, economic rights, political rights, but also individual rights, and this is so important. The right of access to education is vital, it makes a difference. When we talk about quality and inclusive education, we talk about the future in a long-term view", he declared.