This written statement was submitted by GI-ESCR and RTE during the 53rd session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva. It was submitted in relation to the presentation of the report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to education: Securing the right to education: advances and critical challenges (A/HRC/53/27).
This report is a global investigation of the education technology (EdTech) endorsed by 49 governments for children’s education during the pandemic. Based on technical and policy analysis of 163 EdTech products, Human Rights Watch finds that governments’ endorsements of the majority of these online learning platforms put at risk or directly violated children’s privacy and other children’s rights, for purposes unrelated to their education.
The new 2023 GEM Report on Technology in education: A tool on whose terms? addresses the use of technology in education around the world through the lenses of relevance, equity, scalability and sustainability.
It argues that education systems should always ensure that learners’ interests are placed at the center and that digital technologies are used to support an education based on human interaction rather than aiming at substituting it. The report looks at ways in which technology can help reach disadvantaged learners but also ensure more knowledge reaches more learners in more engaging and cheaper formats. It focuses on how quality can be improved, both in teaching and learning basic skills, and in developing the digital skills needed in daily life. It recognizes the role of technology in system management with special reference to assessment data and other education management information.
Education is a fundamental human right under international law. While it should be a right that everyone is entitled to, migrants face multiple challenges in the enjoyment of their right to education.
In the present report, the Special Rapporteur aims to understand these challenges and considers the de facto and de jure situation of the right to education of migrants around the world. Through an analysis of international and regional legal frameworks and more than 500 relevant documents authored by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and United Nations bodies, the report presents its major findings in terms of the 4As framework for the right to education: availability, accessibility, acceptability and adaptability, as well as in terms of cross-cutting issues related to identity.
The report identifies key issues to ensuring the right to education of migrants, including the capacities of public educational institutions, and challenges migrants face in accessing educational facilities and quality educational opportunities that take into account the specific needs of migrant groups.
The report proposes key recommendations to improve the protection and guarantee the full enjoyment by migrants of their right to education through the implementation of the 4As framework for the right to education.
This report shows how a student’s place of origin within France, that is, the region in which they live prior to the beginning of their studies, coupled with their socio-economic background can mean that the cost of education, which is heavily influenced by the structure of the French higher education system, poses a significant barrier to their enjoyment of the right to higher education.
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.
The COVID-19 pandemic greatly accelerated the use of digital technologies in education. But beyond the emergency response, there is an international trend towards exploring how artificial intelligence and data-based analytics can support learning, learning assessments, and evidence-based policy planning processes. The use of data in education is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they offer tremendous potential to create value by improving policies and programmes, driving transparent governance and better management of education systems, teachers’ empowerment, personalized learning experiences, assessment, and certification. On the other hand, data accumulation can lead to a concentration of economic and political power, raising the possibility that data may be misused in ways that harm learners. This publication argues that a balance must be struck between the use of technology to advance educational transformation and the safeguarding of privacy and individual rights. Proper rules and protocols are needed to protect students and teachers not only in national policies but also at international level, where cooperation and collaborative efforts are also required to support policy learning, knowledge sharing and mutual understanding. UNESCO launches through this publication a clarion call to the education community not only to pay careful attention to data privacy in education, but to take the lead in these developments.
This documented was submitted to the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education in February 2023, in response to a call for contributions for a report she is developing for the UN Human Rights Council.
The present report outlines the main activities undertaken by the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Felipe González Morales, during the reporting period. In the report, the Special Rapporteur highlights the human rights challenges faced by migrants in an irregular situation by providing an analysis on how irregularity increases vulnerability to human rights violations. He discusses how to address situations of vulnerability of migrants due to a lack of regular migration status by creating and strengthening regularization mechanisms. On the basis of the information and analysis provided by States, international organizations, civil society and other stakeholders, the Special Rapporteur identifies promising practices, ongoing efforts and existing challenges and provides a set of recommendations aimed at expanding and diversifying regularization mechanisms and programmes to enhance the protection of the human rights of migrants.
In the present report, submitted pursuant to Human Rights Council resolutions 8/4 and 44/3, the Special Rapporteur on the right to education addresses the risks and opportunities of the digitalization of education and their impact on the right to education.
The Special Rapporteur calls for discussions relating to the introduction of digital technologies in education to be framed around the right of every person to free, quality, public education and the commitments of States in this regard under both international human rights law and Sustainable Development Goal 4.
In particular, the implementation of the right to education must respond to the needs of all persons to access, master and use technology as an empowering tool for being active members of society. The digitalization of education should be geared towards a better implementation of the right to education for all, where it is demonstrated that it brings a significant added value. In this regard, it is important to understand the profit-driven agenda of digital technology lobbyists and companies. In addition, the digitalization of education should not increase inequalities and benefit already privileged segments of societies only or lead to violations of other human rights within education, in particular the right to privacy.