Education is a fundamental human right of every woman, man and child. In states’ efforts to meet their commitments to making the right to education a reality for all, most have made impressive progress in recent decades. With new laws and policies that remove fees in basic education, significant progress has been made in advancing free education. This has led to tens of millions of children enrolling for the first time and the number of out of school children and adolescents falling by almost half since 2000. Important steps have also been taken with regard to gender parity and states have made efforts to raise the quality of education through improved teacher policies and a growing emphasis on learning outcomes.
Despite these efforts, breaches of the right to education persist worldwide, illustrated perhaps most starkly by the fact that 262 million primary and secondary-aged children and youth are still out of school. Girls, persons with disabilities, those from disadvantaged backgrounds or rural areas, indigenous persons, migrants and national minorities are among those who face the worst discrimination, affecting both their right to go to school and their rights within schools.
To respond to the challenges, the Right to Education Initiative (RTE) with UNESCO have developed this handbook to guide action on ensuring full compliance with the right to education. Its objective is not to present the right to education as an abstract, conceptual, or purely legal concept, but rather to be action-oriented. The handbook will also be an important reference for those working towards the achievement of SDG4, by offering guidance on how to leverage legal commitment to the right to education as a strategic way to achieve this goal.
The Latin American Campaign for the Right to Education (CLADE, by its Spanish acronym) is a pluralistic network of civil society organizations with a presence in 18 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, which promotes social mobilization and political advocacy to defend the human right to education. This collection of articles, essays and statements reflect on the vital role of public education in the region and the fault lines exposed by the pandemic, considering both the challenges public education in Latin America faces and possible solutions, alternatives and ways forward.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the responses of States thereto have had a very significant impact on the enjoyment of a wide range of social rights. The Council of Europe’s European Social Charter provides a framework for the measures that must be taken by States Parties to cope with the pandemic as it unfolds. The treaty also provides a necessary framework for the post-pandemic social and economic recovery as well as for preparation for and responses to possible future crises of this nature.
With the present statement the European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR) aims to highlight those Charter rights that are particularly engaged by the COVID-19 crisis. (It does not address the right to protection of health under Article 11 of the Charter, which was the subject of a separate statement adopted in April 20201 ). The statement provides guidance to States Parties, organisations of workers and employers, civil society and other key stakeholders by clarifying certain aspects of the Charter rights in question as they apply in the current crisis.
L’originalité de cette approche consiste à considérer la vie éducationnelle comme une relation vivante entre des acteurs (élèves, éducateurs, organisations et autres acteurs associés) et des ensembles de connaissances qui forment des ressources culturelles communes, porteuses « d’identité, de valeurs et de sens », sans lesquelles les acteurs ne peuvent rien.
In recent decades, governments have made considerable efforts to provide education for all. However, a large gap remains between international commitments, such as the Sustainable Development Goal 4, and the actual achievement of inclusive and equitable quality education for all. As a result, certain actors often critique public education as ineffective and inefficient, and thus incapable of addressing this issue. They argue for privatisation as a solution, deeming private providers as more innovative and effective than public ones. However, shortcomings in public education often arise not from lack of capacity, but lack of political will.
This review of examples of public education in low- and middle-income countries shows that, in direct contrast to widely disseminated (and empirically unvalidated) ideas, public education can be highly effective, efficient and transformative and, crucially, it is possible to develop quality public education everywhere.
In recent decades, governments have made considerable efforts to provide education for all. However, a large gap remains between international commitments, such as the Sustainable Development Goal 4, and the actual achievement of equitable quality education for all. As a result, certain actors often critique public education as ineffective and inefficient, and thus incapable of addressing this issue. They argue for privatisation as a solution, deeming private providers as more innovative and effective than public ones. However, shortcomings in public education often arise not from lack of capacity, but lack of political will.
This review of examples of public education in low- and middle-income countries shows that, in direct contrast to widely disseminated (and empirically unvalidated) ideas, public education can be highly effective, efficient, and transformative and, crucially, it is possible to develop quality public education everywhere.
Public education is often critiqued as ineffective and inefficient. However, where shortcomings in public education are identified, they can often be attributed not to lack of capacity, but lack of political will. Reviewing seven examples of public education in developing countries, this research shows that, in direct contrast to widely disseminated ideas, public education can be the most effective, efficient, and transformative approach to education, and, crucially, it is possible to develop quality public education everywhere.
The ten rights defined in this PRS framework describe what should be included in the approach of an ‘ideal’ school that offers quality inclusive public education and supports our work to secure and strengthen free, compulsory inclusive quality public education for all.
This collaborative approach between ActionAid and the Right to Education Initiative aims to secure free, compulsory, quality public education for all.
This is version two of the framework replacing the first version produced in 2011.
One of the most serious consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the disruption of children’s education worldwide with the closure of schools for public health reasons. Projections from UNESCO Institute for Statistics show that nearly 100 million children across eight age cohorts would move below the minimum proficiency threshold in reading in 2020 due to the pandemic (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2021). Both current studies and experience of school closures due to previous similar crises, such as the Ebola epidemic, show that COVID-19 closures risk exacerbating vulnerabilities for those who are already disadvantaged (Azevedo et al., 2021). This includes lack of access to the vital nutrition provided by school nutrition programs (Borkowski et al., 2021); exposure to violence at home; early marriages and pregnancies for girl children (De Paz et al., 2020); lack of social interaction (Larsen et al., 2021); and deepening inequalities for those without access to the Internet (United Nations Children’s Fund & International Telecommunication Union, 2020).
L’avenir de l’humanité sur la planète est, nous le savons aujourd’hui, compromis. La pandémie a eu au moins le mérite de démontrer combien nos existences sont fragiles et combien nos destins sont inextricablement liés. Il est nécessaire et urgent désormais, d’agir collectivement pour changer de cap et réinventer notre avenir. Dans ce tournant, l’éducation jouera un rôle crucial pour sa capacité, universellement reconnue, à provoquer le changement. Mais pour jouer son rôle, elle devra surmonter un double défi : honorer, d’une part, sa plus vieille promesse, c’est-à-dire d’être effective et d’assurer le droit à une éducation de qualité pour chaque enfant, chaque jeune, chaque adulte partout à travers le monde ; et, d’autre part, assumer entièrement son potentiel transformateur, afin d’ouvrir la voie vers un avenir collectif durable. Pour y parvenir, il convient de s’engager dans un nouveau contrat social pour l’éducation, qui permette de corriger les injustices tout en transformant l’avenir.
Ce nouveau contrat social doit être enraciné dans les droits humains et être fondé sur les principes de non-discrimination, de justice sociale, de respect de la vie, de la dignité humaine et de la diversité culturelle ; il doit aussi s’appuyer sur une éthique de la sollicitude, de la réciprocité et de la solidarité ; il doit enfin renforcer l’éducation comme projet public et un bien commun de l’humanité. Le présent rapport, préparé durant deux ans et qui a pu s’appuyer sur une consultation mondiale de près d’un million de personnes, invite les gouvernements, les partenaires et les citoyens du monde entier à élaborer un nouveau contrat social en faveur de l’éducation, pour construire un avenir pacifique, juste et durable pour toutes et tous.
Les conceptions, les principes et les propositions avancés ici ne constituent qu’un point de départ. Seul un effort collectif pourra les traduire en actes et les adapter aux situations locales. Il existe en effet de vraies lueurs d’espoir. Ce rapport essaie de les ressaisir afin que l’avenir se construise sur ces fondations. Qu’on n’y voit donc pas un manuel ou un plan directeur : c’est le début d’une conversation vitale.