Rights-based approach

Taking a human rights-based approach means carefully planning work so that, for example, the poorest of the poor and those who suffer multiple discriminations, are reached. This approach involves a broad spectrum of people, from community members to grassroots activists to local, national and international NGOs, to trade unions and other civil society actors. And it means working in different ways with the range of stakeholders, at different moments in the process. It requires an understanding that sometimes governments might be collaborators: for example, if they are showing genuine interest in fulfilling their obligations; while at other moments they might be key targets: for example, if they continually fail to invest in delivering the range of human rights.

A couple of useful resources on rights-based approaches to education are available:

Education Rights. A guide for practitioners and activists (ActionAid for the Global Campaign for Education, 2007) - many pages from here are reproduced on the RTE website. It is large and therefore split up in parts here:

            Introduction

            Section 1 ( part 1, part 2): Understanding and securing the right to education

            Section 2 ( part 1, part 2 ): Working with excluded groups

            Section 3 ( part 1, part 2 ): Financing education

            Section 4 ( part 1, part 2 ): Citizen participation in education

            Section 5 ( part 1, part 2 ): Rights in education

            Section 6 ( part 1, part 2) : Advancing a full Education for All agenda

            Annex

            Introduction in French

            The entire Education Rights in Spanish

Manual on Rights-based Education (written by Katarina Tomasevski for UNESCO Bangkok, 2004)

A Human-Rights Based Approach to Education for All (UNICEF/UNESCO, 2007)

See also the NEW! portal on human rights based approaches by UNDP.