Our 2021 Annual Report includes information about our strategy, our team and our supporters, and details activities and key achievements throughout the year.
Our work would not be possible without the generous support of our donors, to whom we are immensely grateful.
The Right to Education Project's Annual Report 2016 includes information on the activities we have undertaken as well as our key achievements and impacts.
In this briefing note compendium, UNESCO IESALC presents the findings of a thematic consultation dedicated to rethinking merit and critically discussing the structural barriers surrounding this concept. The briefing note compendium presents experts’ views on the various challenges associated with merit and some ideas to restart the debate and promote the right to higher education from a social justice perspective.
Within this compendium is a paper published by Delphine Dorsi entitled 'Capacity or Merit? Rethinking notions in access to higher education', pp.18-19.
Non-state actors’ role extends beyond provision of schooling to interventions at various education levels and influence spheres. Alongside its review of progress towards SDG 4, including emerging evidence on the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact, the 2021/2 Global Education Monitoring Report urges governments to see all institutions, students and teachers as part of a single system. Standards, information, incentives and accountability should help governments protect, respect and fulfil the right to education of all, without turning their eyes away from privilege or exploitation. Publicly funded education does not have to be publicly provided but disparity in education processes, student outcomes and teacher working conditions must be addressed. Efficiency and innovation, rather than being commercial secrets, should be diffused and practised by all. To that end, transparency and integrity in the public education policy process need to be maintained to block vested interests.
The report’s rallying call – Who chooses? Who loses? – Invites policymakers to question relationships with non-state actors in terms of fundamental choices: between equity and freedom of choice; between encouraging initiative and setting standards; between groups of varying means and needs; between immediate commitments under SDG 4 and those to be progressively realized (e.g. post-secondary education); and between education and other social sectors.
Higher education is part of the right to education, protected under international human rights law. This means that states have the obligation to protect respect and fulfil the right to higher education and that there are ways to hold them accountable for violations or deprivations of the right to higher education.
However, despite a comprehensive international legal framework ensuring the right to higher education without any discrimination and a wide political commitment to promote inclusion in higher education, important inequalities persist, both in terms of access to higher education and of access to the most socially rewarding degrees and programmes. Issues such as privatisation of higher education and rising tuition fees represent a threat to equal access and participation in higher education, especially in contexts where structural social inequalities - such as class, gender, or territorial inequalities - persevere. Moreover, certain groups - such as ethnic, racial, and religious minorities as well as migrants, refugees, or asylum seekers - are still widely underrepresented in higher education if compared to their proportion in the population as a whole.
These, and many other challenges regarding access and participation in higher education, can be brought to light when we carefully monitor the right to higher education. It is only by monitoring the right to higher education that adapted laws and policies which can address persistent inequalities and discriminations can be designed.
This guide proposes a human rights based approach to inequalities regarding students’ access to and participation in higher education. This guide is part of a series of thematic guidance notes providing practical advice on monitoring various aspects of the right to education from a human rights perspective.
This report, jointly produced by Right to Education Initiative; La FAGE, Fédération des Associations Générales Etudiantes; and Global Students Forum, focuses on the right to higher education, questioning France’s compliance with its obligations regarding article 2.2 and article 13.2 (c) of the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).
It is based on a five year research project developed by the Right to Education Initiative (RTE) in collaboration with students from Sciences Po Law School Clinic (Paris) and researchers from the University of Geneva, University of Orléans and ENS Paris Saclay
This submission highlights that the public policies aiming to reduce inequalities in access to higher education implemented by the French government since the last periodical reporting session are insufficient, and need to be reinforced and expanded. It argues that structural, territorial, and socio-economic inequalities as well as the State’s higher education financing policy hinder equality and non-discrimination in access to higher education and increase the privatisation trend.
The present report is submitted to the General Assembly pursuant to Human Rights Council resolutions 8/4 and 53/7. In the report, the Special Rapporteur on the right to education, Farida Shaheed, addresses the crucial role and rights of teachers, their contribution to the full realization of the right to education and the challenges that this presents.
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In a world facing social fragmentation, harmful inequities, and environmental deterioration, we need quality, transformative, inclusive public education now more than ever. As our political systems struggle to resist autocracy and to foster democracy, free public education can help create a well-informed public with the capacity to address these global challenges.
The public supports public education, and public education works.
Please sign the statement as an organisation or as an individual and join us in the process of advocating for States to realise the full potential of public education. Our future depends on it!