The government of Malawi should increase efforts to end widespread child and forced marriage, or risk worsening poverty, illiteracy, and preventable maternal deaths in the country.
According to government statistics, half of the girls in Malawi will be married by their 18th birthday, with some as young as age 9 or 10 being forced to marry. Malawi faces many economic challenges, but the rights of girls and women, including the right to education, should not be sacrificed as a result.
Since the beginnings of 2012, at least 70 teachers and over 100 students have been killed or wounded in northern Nigeria. Educational facilities have been burned, thousands of children forced out of schools and teachers made to flee for safety. The purpose of this briefing is to draw attention to the damaging effects of this on-going violence. It calls on the Islamist armed group Boko Haram and other gunmen to immediately cease all attacks on schools; and on the Nigerian authorities to provide better protection for schools and ensure that attacks are properly investigated.
Brief about education and disability in Burundi in post-conflict recovery.
This issue of the INTERIGHTS Bulletin focuses on litigating the right to education in Africa. It includes the following articles:
Litigating the Right to Education: Editorial
Solomon Sacco and Susie Talbot
Africa and the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
Malcolm Langford and Rebecca Brown
Litigating the Right to Universal Primary Education: Challenges and Prospects
Iain Byrne
Toward Recognition of the Right to Free Education in Colombia
Esteban Hoyos-Ceballos and Camilo Castillo-Sánchez
Expropriation as a Means to Protect the Right to Basic Education: The Case of a Farm School on Private Property Facing Eviction
Dmitri Holtzman
Lessons from Litigating Universal Primary Education in Swaziland
Ruchi Parekh
Developing a Litigation Strategy Regarding Non-Fee Barriers to Equal Access to Free and Compulsory Education for Children in Kenya
Hellen Mutellah
Litigating the Expulsion of Pregnant Girls
Solomon Sacco
Tactics to Secure the Right to Education for Children Living with Albinism in Kenya
Gertrude N Angote
Dzvova v Minister of Education, Sports and Culture & Ors
Bellinda Chinowawa
Republic v Head Teacher, Kenya High School, ex parte SMY
Charlotte Leslie
The Legal Way of Doing Things: The Competing Powers of School Governing Bodies and Education Authorities in South Africa
Karabo Ngidi
The ECOWAS Decision on the Right to Education in SERAP v Nigeria
Adetokunbo Mumuni and Chinyere Nwafor
Advancing the Right to Education Through the Communication Procedure in the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child
Charlotte Leslie
This publication is intended to support everybody that works in the basic education field in South Africa. It aims to provide a common legally grounded planning, monitoring and advocacy framework that is child-centred and recognises the interconnectedness of human rights.
Alternative Report submitted by ISER-Uganda and the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, with the support of the Privatisation in Education Research Initiative, the Right to Education Project, Education International, the Global Campaign for Education, the Africa Network Campaign on Education For All, Forum for Education NGO's in Uganda and the Girls Education Movement Uganda Chapter to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights at its 54th Session for its consideration of the List of Issues for Uganda. This report highlights the issue of privatisation in education in Uganda.
This training manual explores the origins of the African regional human rights mechanisms. It elaborates the normative framework and rights recognised in the regional human rights treaties in the region. It also focuses on how to use these monitoring and enforcement mechanisms and some of the challenges faced in doing so. This is a learning tool for human rights defenders, and especially trainers from the region interested in conducting training on human rights. With a focus also on civil society engagement in the regional human rights mechanisms, the publication provides useful insights at a practical level. The publication will enhance your knowledge on African regional human rights mechanisms.
This edition of the Economic and Social Advocacy Brief looks beyond the increased enrollment figures and provides a qualitative assessment to determine if the current basic education system in Uganda is directed to the full development of the human personality.
Education Minister Hon. Jessica Alupo sets the scene in a Q&A by voicing her support for the increment of the UPE Capitation grant and implementation of other measures aimed at motivating teachers.
Uganda Human Rights Commission writes about the states obligation in relation to the right to education, veteran journalist and Observer Education Editor, Moses Talemwa, writes about the state of public education in Uganda as well as the implications and impact of privatised education on the broader right to education.
UNESCO makes the case that quality education requires a commitment to invest in teachers.
The Brief features the views of six Members of Parliament from the Education Committee on how to improve the quality of universal basic education such that it adheres to an acceptable standard. The Brief also provides excerpts and highlights from the alternative reports on education submitted to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights ahead of Uganda’s review by the Committee in June 2015.
South Africa is in the unique position of having the right to education guaranteed in the Constitution. The law has been used to advance this right by translating what is on paper into a reality for thousands of learners across the country. The LRC and partners have been at the forefront of civil society efforts in achieving this. We wanted to share our successes.
In October 2013, the Legal Resources Centre was proud to launch Ready to Learn? A Legal Resource for Realising the Right to Education at the Open Society Foundations in New York (find the press release here). The book was designed for legal practitioners and shares the LRC’s legal efforts to contribute to realising the right to education in South Africa. Ready to Learn?
Fighting to Learn… A Legal Resource for Realising the Right to Education is the follow on from Ready to Learn? Using the same format as the first publication,Fighting to Learn… gives an update on many of the cases represented in Ready to Learn? and provides a more general reflection on the role of education in the development agenda.
In Fighting to Learn…, practitioners of law in other jurisdictions can access a summary and court papers relating to the provision of classroom furniture, access to learner-support material and the payment and appointment of teachers. It also gives follow-up materials for the “mud schools” matter and norms and standards for education.
It demonstrates how the Constitutional right to education was integral to our fight for a quality education that is accessible to all. It also demonstrates the creativity of LRC lawyers in their work, from using class actions, which is new in South Africa, to our increasing use of innovative remedies, such as using external administrators to implement court judgments.