This compilation of good practices is intended to provide examples of meaningful and promising activities implemented in Council of Europe member states to promote an education free from gender stereotypes and identify new ways to implement the measures comprised in the Committee of Ministers Recommendation on Gender Mainstreaming in Education. The presented initiatives include among others campaigns to inform and motivate girls and women to choose non stereotypical careers, gender equality training programmes for teachers and fnancial assistance provided to families to support girls’ school attendance. Sharing of good practices provides a very useful reference tool for countries in the process of developing new initiatives. This compilation constitutes an important resource for all stakeholders eager to promote equality in education and to combat gender stereotypes in and through education.

A human rights analysis of schools reopening in England on 1 June 2020 after their closure due to the Covid-19. An Advisory Note to Independent SAGE.

This brief will primarily be used by Just Fair and other NGOs across the UK to inform their approach to the seventh periodic review of the UK by the CESCR. The first part analyses the concerns repeatedly raised in the UK’s six Concluding Observations from 1980 to 2016 on its implementation of ICESCR’s substantive rights. Secondly, based on a systematic keyword search of three different databases – Ebsco Discovery, UK Westlaw and International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS) – potentially relevant concerns since 2016 are identified and analysed for each of the substantive rights with a view to the UK’s seventh periodic review. In each of these sections, particular attention is given to funding, Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic, and nondiscrimination, when relevant.

Key resource

This brief was submitted to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights prior to the 7th Review of the United Kingdom, responding to the pre-sessional Working Group submission. It was submitted in January 2023 and focuses on UK international development cooperation in the area of education. 

This joint statement signed by RTE and 18 CSOs responds to a report published in September 2023 by the International Development Committee (IDC) of the UK House of Commons, entitled ‘Investment for development - The UK’s Strategy towards Development Finance Initiatives. The report’ raises major concerns about the UK’s investments as part of development aid which the signatory organisations working on education share and reiterate. In this joint statement we respond to this report and express our concern about the British International Investment’s (BII) activities and impacts in key sectors responsible for delivering human rights, including education and health.