The present report is submitted to the General Assembly pursuant to Human Rights Council resolutions 8/4 and 44/3. In the report, the Special Rapporteur on the right to education, Koumbou Boly Barry, considers early childhood care and education (ECCE) from a human rights-based perspective, reflecting the multisectoral needs of children and their caregivers.
ECCE combines the education and care requirements of children from birth to 8 years of age. The concept demonstrates that the right to education is indivisible from the rights to health, housing, food, water and sanitation, as well as cultural rights, among others. While the importance of ECCE has been widely recognized in humanitarian and developmental fields, it has been insufficiently codified in human rights law. The Special Rapporteur considers the human rights-based aspects of ECCE and recommends the creation of a human rights instrument on ECCE.
Statement made by the Right to Education Initiative along with 68civil society organisations from all over the world welcoming the publication on 24 November 2022 of the landmark General Comment No. 7 on State obligations under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights in the context of private provision of public services by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
Delphine Dorsi, Director of Right to Education Initiative and Jamil Salmi, Global Tertiary Education Expert join Emma Sabzalieva, Head of Research and Foresight (UNESCO IESALC) to talk about inclusion policies and initiatives around the world and how they connect to the right to higher education.
The final report of outgoing UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education, Ms Koumbou Boly Barry, addressing the right to early childhood care and education (ECCE), highlights the wide ranging ‘developmental, educational, social, cultural and economic benefits’ of ECCE to children, their families and wider society, and urges states to recognise and enshrine ECCE rights from birth until primary school, significantly calling for a more specific legal instrument to be established to complement the protections already established in international human rights instruments.
This report reflects a milestone in the realisation of young children’s right to education, and thus paves the way for long-term change and improvement to education systems, entrenched inequalities, and cohesive social development.
We wish to offer our sincere thanks to the outgoing Special Rapporteur Koumbou Boly Barry and acknowledge her for giving precedence to the right to education of young children in her report, and also for the overall contribution towards the realisation of the right to education during her mandate.
This statement synthesises some of the key information contained in the outgoing Special Rapporteur's report, and acknowledges her contribution across the two terms of her mandate.
In her progress report, the Special Rapporteur on the right to education notes difficulties in the carrying out of her mandate which originate in inadequate servicing by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and also points out an innovative facet she has introduced, follow-up to her country missions, following the Commission’s emphasis on promoting the right to education.
E/CN.4/2000/6
The climate emergency, rising inequalities and the COVID-19 pandemic have reaffirmed the failures and limitations of the current neoliberal model to respond to crises and ensure a dignified life for all. Transformation in the organisation of our economy is needed in order to confront the challenges the world is currently facing and to create societies that are fair, inclusive, socially-just, equitable and sustainable.
To this end, actors from a diverse range of movements, sectors and regions have, in recent years, been mobilising to reclaim and rebuild public services as the foundation of a fair and just economy that works for all. Key milestones have included the first global “Future is Public” conference held in Amsterdam 2019, which brought together over 400 participants to discuss strategies for putting the “public” back into public services and to build democratic public ownership of the economy, and the launch of the collective civil society Global Manifesto on Public Services in October 2021, signed by over 200 organisations.
From 29th November to 2nd December over a thousand representatives from over one hundred countries, from grassroots movements, advocacy, human rights, and development organisations, feminist movements, trade unions, and other civil society organisations, met in Santiago, Chile, and virtually, to discuss the critical role of public services for our future.
Following the meeting, the Santiago Declaration on Public Services was adopted by a drafting group representing all sectors, on the basis of the notes and discussions during the four days.
We are at a critical juncture. At a time when the world faces a series of crises, from the environmental emergency to hunger and deepening inequalities, increasing armed conflicts, pandemics, rising extremism, and escalating inflation, a collective response is growing. A large movement is building and concrete solutions are emerging to counter the dominant paradigm of growth, privatisation and commodification.
Hundreds of organisations across socio-economic justice and public services sectors, from education and health services, to care, energy, food, housing, water, transportation and social protection, are coming together to address the harmful effects of commercialising public services, to reclaim democratic public control, and to reimagine a truly equal and human rights oriented economy that works for people and the planet.
We demand universal access to quality, gender-transformative and equitable public services as the foundation of a fair and just society.
Our Future is Public: Join our call for universal access to quality, gender-transformative and equitable public services as the foundation of a fair and just society. Read the Declaration, and endorse it here.