On 16 April 2025, the Right to Education Initiative (RTE) held an online event to mark the launch of a new guide focused on Monitoring the Right to Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) from a Human Rights' Perspective. The new tool is designed to help civil society organisations, academics, educational personnel and any other actor interested in monitoring and advocating for the right to ECCE. The new guide is part of a series of thematic monitoring guides that take a deep dive into monitoring specific right to education issues and complement RTE's monitoring guide and indicators selection tool.
In her opening remarks, RTE's Director, Delphine Dorsi, recalled the importance of monitoring the right to education, highlighting that ‘assessing gaps and/or violations in its implementation is essential to ensure it is protected, respected and fully realised.’ She stressed that this is the reason why ‘monitoring the right to education has been at the heart of RTE’s work since 2008’ with the development of tools and the provision of practical advice to a wide range of actors.
RTE’s ECCE Program Manager, Rajakumari Michaelsamy, recalled that this monitoring guide is the result of several years of work analysing the international legal framework applying to ECCE and collaborating with many actors working on this topic. She highlighted ‘the crucial role civil society plays in monitoring and advocating for policy formulation, addressing gaps in programmes and services, improving national ECCE systems at all levels, and strengthening the legal framework on ECCE.’ She invited civil society organisations to engage with this monitoring tool and promote its use among educational practitioners desiring to take stock of the implementation of the right to ECCE in their communities. She went on to present the key features of the monitoring guide:
Why and how to monitor ECCE from a human rights perspective
ECCE legal framework in international human rights law
Human rights indicators that cover equality, non discrimination and inclusive access, quality (learning environment, learning process and content, ECCE personnel), financing, systems and services and privatisation.
Reporting and advocating for ECCE in local, national, regional and international contexts
The event gathered over 50 participants and had the presence of three high level guest speakers representing academics, international organisations and civil society organisations who shared their views on the usefulness of the guide in their own contexts.
Talking about the relevance of this guide at the national level, Ms. Angella Nabwowe, Executive Director of the Initiative for Social and Economic Rights (ISER) said: ‘This guide is user-friendly and provides clarity in defining the scope and design of monitoring. The indicators are very elaborated and guide us on how we frame our advocacy for the realisation of the right to ECCE. Further, it feeds into our programmatic work for adopting a community-centric approach to monitoring and documenting gaps in the implementation of ECCE.’
Prof. Eva Lloyd, Emeritus Professor of Early Childhood in the School of Education and Social Care at the University of East London, highlighted the global challenges presented in the introduction of the guide and emphasised the importance of monitoring ECCE. Referring to some of the research projects she undertook, she said: ‘Monitoring is constantly needed, even where the state establishes legal mechanisms from a human rights perspective to guarantee children have access to ECCE.’ She further highlighted the importance of looking at both structures, processes and outcomes in any situation and appreciated that indicators in the guide focus on and cover all dimensions.
Welcoming this initiative, Rolla Moumne, who leads the Right to Education Programme at UNESCO Headquarters, said: ‘It is a timely and valuable contribution to advancing the right to ECCE globally. This guide reinforces the importance of adopting a rights-based lens in monitoring and assessing progress in this key area.’ She also further briefed on how the guide can be integrated with UNESCO's upcoming work on monitoring ECCE in three countries.
On 24 April 2025, we held a workshop gathering 40 participants discussing the practical use of the guide and the monitoring of ECCE from a human rights perspective more broadly. Several participants stressed how the publication of this tool was timely for their monitoring and advocacy work at country level. The relevance of monitoring at local level was emphasised, especially because many issues happening at this level are often invisible. The need to monitor the implementation of existing law and policies in practice was also highlighted.
RTE is very thankful to all people who contributed to the development of this guide and to the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs who supported its publication.
The guide is an open source available in English, and a French version will be published soon.
The monitoring tool can be downloaded from the link, and the recording of the launch event can be accessed here.