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.
In his report, the Special Rapporteur on minority issues, Fernand de Varennes, provides a clear working definition of the concept of a minority in order to guide his activities and those of the United Nations. He describes a series of initiatives, including three regional forums that complement the Forum on Minority Issues. In the thematic section of his report, he sets out the often misunderstood language dimension of education for minorities, which emanates from the proper understanding and implementation of international human rights obligations. He describes the parameters of the application of human rights, and in particular the principles of equality without discrimination, as of primary importance for the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 4 on quality education for all, including linguistic minorities such as users of sign languages.
In this report, the Special Rapporteur examines the implementation of the right to education and Sustainable Development Goal 4 in the context of the growth of private actors in education.
She presents to the Human Rights Council and States Members of the United Nations the Abidjan Principles on the human rights obligations of States to provide public education and to regulate private involvement in education, and recommends their full implementation.
She recalls that international human rights law requires States to provide free, quality, public education. Depending on their nature and aims, private actors may contribute to the realization of the right to education and offer educational alternatives, thus enhancing, for example, respect for cultural diversity. However, the persistent underfunding of public education and the rapid and unregulated growth in the involvement of private, in particular commercial, actors in education, threaten the implementation of the right to education for all and Sustainable Development Goal 4.
The report contains observations and recommendations on the obligation of States to fund and provide public education and provides some concrete suggestions and solutions. It draws on the Abidjan Principles, in particular with regard to the obligation to regulate private actors involved in education, public-private partnerships and the role of donors and civil society.
China’s education policy in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) is significantly reducing the access of ethnic Tibetans to education in their mother tongue. The government policy, though called “bilingual education,” is in practice leading to the gradual replacement of Tibetan by Chinese as the medium of instruction in primary schools throughout the region, except for classes studying Tibetan as a language. Since the 1960s, Chinese has been the language of instruction in nearly all middle and high schools in the TAR, where just under half of Tibetans in China live, but new educational practices introduced by the government in the TAR are now leading more primary schools and even kindergartens to use Chinese as the teaching language for Tibetan students.
The present report, submitted pursuant to Human Rights Council resolutions 8/4 and 26/17, is devoted to lifelong learning and the right to education. The Special Rapporteur sheds light on the vision and concept of lifelong learning and highlights the emergence of the 'right to learning', intertwined with the right to education and training as a social right. He also examines state responsibility, along with that of other social partners, for its realisation and underlines the key importance placed on lifelong learning in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Special Rapporteur also looks at the special role that devolves upon technical and vocational education and training for skills development and analyses the issues in financing lifelong learning. Finally, the Special Rapporteur offers a set of recommendations with a view to promoting learning as a right and its pursuit from a lifelong learning perspective, in keeping with state obligations as set out in international human rights instruments.
The report examines Senegal’s mixed record in addressing the problem in the year since a fire ripped through a Quranic boarding school in Dakar housed in a makeshift shack, killing eight boys. After the fire, President Macky Sall pledged to take immediate action to close schools where boys live in unsafe conditions or are exploited by teachers, who force them to beg and inflict severe punishment when the boys fail to return a set quota of money. While important legislation has advanced, authorities have taken little concrete action to end this abuse. The report informs about the regulation of Quranic school and makes recommendations.
In this report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council, the Special Rapporteur on the right to education looks with concern at the rapid increase in the number of private education providers and the resulting commercialisation of education, and examines the negative effects of this on the norms and principles underlying the legal framework of the right to education as established by international human rights treaties. He highlights the repercussions of privatisation on the principles of social justice and equity and analyses education laws as well as evolving jurisprudence related to privatisation in education. Finally, he offers a set of recommendations on developing effective regulatory frameworks for controlling private providers of education and safeguarding education as a public good.
The Special Rapporteur examines public-private partnerships in education, which are inextricably linked to rapidly expanding privatisation. He highlights their implications for the right to education and for the principles of social justice and equity. Lastly, he offers a set of recommendations with a view to developing an effective regulatory framework, along with implementation strategies for public-private partnerships in education, in keeping with State obligations for the right to education, as laid down in international human rights conventions, and the need to safeguard education as a public good.
This report was submitted to the General Assembly in September 2013. It highlights recent developments with respect to the post-2015 development agenda focusing on a rights-based approach to education. The Special Rapporteur provides perspectives on education goals with recommended implementation strategies. Considering education as the foundation of the post-2015 development agenda, the report presents the views and recommendations of the Special Rapporteur on way to operationalize a rights-based approach to the education development goals.