This toolkit aims to help education activists reinforce their advocacy and campaign work on education financing. It aims to give practical information in an accessible form, together with ideas for how to build an effective national campaign – the evidence you can build and the tactics you can deploy. 

It focuses on holding national governments, particularly Ministries of Finance, to account, challenging them when they are internalising ideological positions pushed by external actors. The toolkit is addressed to national coalitions, teacher unions, NGOs and others, to deal with strategic issues around education financing so that more money flows more effectively into education systems and more children can learn in good quality public schools. 

This is a 28-page booklet setting out a process for using a human rights framework to assess a government’s education budget.  The booklet looks at elements of the right to education and where these might be found in a government’s budget; a government’s human rights obligations and questions these raise about a government’s budget; a process for using a rights framework to analyse a government’s education budget; and a short discussion of costing related to the right to education.

 

This report explores a range of innovative education budget work initiatives from Bangladesh, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi and Uganda, where civil society has monitored and challenged their governments over education expenditure in order to hold themaccountable for commitments to EFA and the MDGs. It examines the significance and impact of civil society budget initiatives by drawing on interviews and focus group discussions with a range of education stakeholders, including education coalitions, government officials, nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), teaching staff and school pupils; and by reviewing research reports and budget manuals developed by civil society organisations (CSOs).

This guide provides civil society organisations (CSOs) in the education sector with the basic information they need to get started on budget work. It introduces core concepts relating to budgets, and discusses ways of analysing them. It also demonstrates how budget work can inform strategic advocacy messages, and bring about change in the education sector.

This booklet articulates what it means to take an explicitly rights-based approach to government budgets and draws on the lessons of Gender Budget Initiative experiences around the world. It links govern­ments’ commitments under CEDAW with the four main dimen­sions of budgets: revenue, expenditure, macroeconomics of the budget, and budget decision-making processes. It shows links between the share of educational expenditure and the realisation of girls’ right to education.

 

This guide presents ideas and methodologies to put a human rights-based approach to education in practice. It focuses on six strategic areas that are central to (and provide a framework for) a HRBA to education including: understanding and securing the right to education working with excluded groups; financing education; promoting citizen participation in education securing rights in education; advancing a full "Education for All" agenda. Each section begins with a brief overview of key issues to be considered and then discusses a range of activities which could be developed within a scheme of work. Short practical examples are given, from a wide range of countries. The majority of the activities focus on work at the local level, but national and international links are also discussed. Within each section two or three areas are analysed in more detail.

Spanish

Este paquete desarrolla una serie de ideas y metodologías para poner en práctica un planteamiento de la educación basado en los derechos humanos. Se concentra en seis sectores estratégicos, que son esenciales para trabajar en educación con un planteamiento basado en los derechos humanos y que proporcionan un marco para este trabajo. Estos sectores son: Comprender y asegurar el derecho a la educación; Trabajar con grupos excluidos; Financiar la educación; Promover la participación ciudadana en la educación; Conseguir derechos en educación; Promover un programa completo de “Educación para Todos”. Cada capítulo empieza con una breve presentación de los aspectos más importantes a ser analizados y sigue con una explicación de las actividades que podrían realizarse dentro de un esquema de trabajo. También se incluyen ejemplos prácticos de numerosos países. La mayoría de las actividades se centran en el trabajo a nivel local, pero también se analizan los vínculos nacionales e internacionales. Dentro de cada capítulo, hemos escogido dos o tres áreas que se analizan con mayor detalle. 

 

Key resource

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.

Français