For the past 18 months, a number of international, national and local organisations have been working together to research and assess the effects of the growth of private education from a human rights perspective in 8 countries. This work, led by the Global Initiative on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR) in Partnership with the Privatisation in Education Research Initiative (PERI) and the Right to Education Initiative (RTE), has produced an effective methodology that civil society can use to tackle privatisation in their countries.
This work has been conducted in Morocco, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Brazil, Chile and Nepal. In the UK, organisations have examined the impact of development aid to support to private education in developing countries.
This strategy has been very successful in producing statements and recommendations from key UN human rights bodies. The work has also contributed to reports by the Special Rapporteur on the right to education to the UN General Assembly and the Human Rights Council on the impact of private actors on the right to education. Advocacy at the international level has fuelled national advocacy and dialogue with governments, private actors and other stakeholders on this issue.
There is a unique opportunity for civil society to tackle complex issues of privatisation in education by using this framework. The methodology can easily be replicated by your coalition, even if you have no experience using human rights mechanisms. This 3-part series explains this work in more detail and how your coalition can get involved. The documents are designed as an introduction.
Part 1 on Private Actors in Education & Human Rights: A Practical Methodology to Tackle the Negative Effects of Privatisation in Education on the Right to Education is available, here.
Part 3 Case-Studies on Parallel Reporting to Tackle Privatisation in Education is available, here.
For the past 18 months, a number of international, national and local organisations have been working together to research and assess the effects of the growth of private education from a human rights perspective in 8 countries. This work, led by the Global Initiative on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR) in Partnership with the Privatisation in Education Research Initiative (PERI) and the Right to Education Initiative (RTE), has produced an effective methodology that civil society can use to tackle privatisation in their countries.
This work has been conducted in Morocco, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Brazil, Chile and Nepal. In the UK, organisations have examined the impact of development aid to support to private education in developing countries.
This strategy has been very successful in producing statements and recommendations from key UN human rights bodies. The work has also contributed to reports by the Special Rapporteur on the right to education to the UN General Assembly and the Human Rights Council on the impact of private actors on the right to education. Advocacy at the international level has fuelled national advocacy and dialogue with governments, private actors and other stakeholders on this issue.
There is a unique opportunity for civil society to tackle complex issues of privatisation in education by using this framework. The methodology can easily be replicated by your coalition, even if you have no experience using human rights mechanisms. This 3-part series explains this work in more detail and how your coalition can get involved. The documents are designed as an introduction.
Part 1 on Private Actors in Education & Human Rights: A Practical Methodology to Tackle the Negative Effects of Privatisation in Education on the Right to Education is available, here.
Part 2 on How to Use Human Rights Mechanisms is available, here.
Parallel Report submitted by the National Campaign for Education-Nepal, the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Sciences Po law school Clinic, and partners, on the occasion of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Nepal during the 23rd session of the UPR Working Group.
This report shows that the current organisation of education system in Nepal, in particular a high level of unregulated private involvement in education, is creating and entrenching segregation in education. Such segregation in itself constitutes a human rights violation and need to be ended. It is also the source of additional other human rights abuses, including discrimination on the grounds of socio-economic background, gender and race, the limitation of the right to free quality education, and the lowering of education quality. This situation is extremely problematic due to the immediate human rights violations it is causing, but also because the injustices it generates contribute to threatening the fragile social cohesion and peace that exist in Nepal.
France’s investment in the education multinational Bridge International Academies (BIA) has raised serious concerns regarding the extraterritorial obligations (ETOs) of France, in relation to the rights set out in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), particularly, the right to education.
Alternative report submitted in March 2020 by 13 civil society organisations, including the Right to Education Initiative, to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights at the occasion of the review by the independent experts of the Committee of the implemention by France of its human rights obligations, as definied under the ICESCR.
Aimed at actively engaging parents, children, teachers, unions, communities and local civil society organisations in collectively monitoring and improving the quality of public education PRS offers a set of practical tools that can be used as a basis for mobilisation, advocacy and campaigning. The pack provides four key resources:
1) A charter of 10 rights which, when fulfilled, will enable all children to complete a good quality education;
2) A participatory methodology for: using the charter; collecting, analysing and using data; and consolidating information into ‘citizens reports’ that could be used for the development of Action Plans or to encourage discussions and reviews at local, district and national levels;
3) A series of education- and rights-based indicators organised in a survey format to enable users to capture information in a systematic manner;
4) A compilation of key international human rights references providing the foundations and legitimacy of the charter and reports
PRS builds on education and human rights frameworks to describe an ideal school that offers quality education. Its methodology supports links between programme work at the school level and advocacy and policy efforts in national and international forums. The process is as important as the outcome: it is only through engaging all stakeholders in the process - from developing the charter to collecting and analysing the data and debating the findings - that we will promote greater awareness of what needs to change and how.
L'investissement de la France dans la multinationale d'enseignement Bridge International Academies (BIA) a soulevé de graves préoccupations quant à ses obligations extraterritoriales (OET) vis-à-vis de l'ensemble des droits garantis par le Pacte international relatif aux droits économiques, sociaux et culturels (PIDESC), et en particulier en matière de droit à l'éducation.
Rapport alternatif soumis en mars 2020 par 13 orgnisations de la société civile, dont l'Initiative pour le droit à l'éducation (Right to Education Initiative), au Comité des droits économiques, sociaux et culturels à l'occasion de la revue par les experts du Comité de la mise en oeuvre par France de ses obligations en matière de droits de l'Homme, telles que définies par le PIDESC.
When working on human rights issues, you should consider a person’s right to decide whether they want to be featured in written, recorded or audiovisual work.
It is an ethical consideration which protects individuals from exploitation. It is also a legal requirement: in many countries you cannot share, store or publish content if consent has not been obtained.
International and regional human rights bodies monitor and review progress made on the implementation of human rights treaties on a regular basis and continuously issue recommendations to States to improve the situation of children’s rights in each country. Civil society plays a crucial role in monitoring progress and challenges for children’s rights on the ground. Civil society practitioners often know about these processes and contribute to these recommendations. But not always are these recommendations systematically follow-up on to see what happens once the States receive them, and whether these recommendations are actually used to improve the situation. At the same time, many of us within civil society do not know about these processes and recommendations and miss opportunities that could strengthen our ongoing work.
This guide aims to empower and inspire civil society practitioners to follow-up, use and make the most of these recommendations as part of their daily work to advance realisation of children’s rights in their countries. To that end, it provides a step-by-step plan of activities to consider, with case studies and practical tips and formats to help us in that journey. It also provides some additional links with background information for those of us with less experience in this field.
RTE's background paper for the Global Education Monitoring Report 2017/8: Accountability in education: Meeting our commitments.
The purpose of the paper is to show how a human rights-based approach offers insights and practical solutions to address the accountability deficits found in both education policy decision-making and implementation, and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Specifically, the paper argues that a human rights-based approach to accountability can bolster public policy accountability by defining the responsibilities of authorities, ensuring they are answerable for actions regarding those responsibilities, and how they can be subject to forms of enforceable sanctions or remedial action for failures to carry out those responsibilities.
The second half of the paper explores the prevalence of the right to education in national laws and the conditions necessary for the right to education to be successfully adjudicated at the national level. It provides an overview of how countries have incorporated the right to education in their domestic legal orders, as well as a list of countries where the right to education is justiciable. This is complemented by a series of case studies that draw out the requirements for successful adjudication at the national level.
This paper examines court cases from countries around the world to identify the conditions that enable the right to education to be realised through adjudication.