45 civil society organisations receive with concern the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman’s (CAO’s) Compliance Investigation Report into the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) investment in Bridge International Academies (BIA, also known as NewGlobe schools), and acknowledge its grave findings regarding allegations of child sexual abuse at the company’s for-profit chain of schools in Kenya.
Our 2023 Annual Report includes information about our impact and areas of activity across the year, in addition to details on our strategy, our team and our supporters.
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The INEE Minimum Standards for Education: Preparedness, Response, Recovery (INEE MS) contains 19 standards, each of which includes key actions and guidance notes. The purpose of the INEE MS is to improve the quality of educational preparedness, response, and recovery; to increase access to safe and relevant learning opportunities; and to ensure that the actors who provide these services are held accountable. The INEE MS are designed to be applicable to crisis response in many different situations, including emergencies caused by conflict, by natural hazards such as those induced by climate change, and slow- and rapid-onset crises in both rural and urban environments.
The present report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to education, Farida Shaheed, examines the right to academic freedom from a right to education perspective. It proposes considering academic freedom an autonomous human right grounded in several provisions of international law.
Academic freedom is the freedom to access, disseminate and produce information; to think freely; and develop, express, apply and engage with a diversity of knowledge within or related to one’s expertise or field of study, regardless of whether it takes place inside the academic community (“intramural expression”) or outside the academic community, including with the public (“extramural expression”). It is a human right the exercise of which carries special duties to seek truth and impart information according to ethical and professional standards, and to respond to contemporary problems and needs of all members of society.
In the sphere of education, the Special Rapporteur supports an approach of academic freedom which all researchers, educators and students are entitled to, at all levels of education, taking into consideration the developing capacities and maturity of students. Academic freedom includes four interdependent pillars: the right to teach, to engage in discussions and debates with persons and groups inside (including in classrooms) and outside the academic community, to conduct research, and to disseminate opinions and research results. Such approach requires understanding the vitality of free expression in teaching, to review the concept of “neutrality” in education, and to reconsider processes for accrediting school manuals and imposing or prohibiting specific subjects from curricula, having in mind the aims of education under international human rights law. Educators can only foster critical thinking and provide diverse perspectives if they, themselves, enjoy academic freedom, while upholding the principles of pluralism, respect for others, and the pursuit of knowledge.
The Special Rapporteur draws the attention of the Human Rights Council and all stakeholders to the set of Principles for Implementing the Right to Academic Freedom, drafted by a working group of United Nations experts, scholars, and civil society actors, based on and reflecting the status of international law and practice. Endorsement and implementation of these Principles would allow a better state of academic freedom worldwide.
Is French Higher Education truly accessible to all, without any discrimination? What are the impacts of the privatization of Higher Education on the right to equal access to Higher Education and quality education for all?
Focusing on the impacts of inequalities based on place of residence, indirect study costs and privatization on the implementation of the right to Higher Education in France, this document illustrates the challenges related to the realization of the right to higher education. Overcoming these hurdles for a country like France could, a priori, be held up as an example to others. Lastly, this report highlights France’s legally binding obligations and potential infringements, especially with regard to its role in financing the Higher Education system.
In conflict-affected settings, children’s access to education is severely disrupted by attacks on schools and their military use, with girls and female teachers facing unique and heightened risks. Over the 2014-2018 period, the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA) documented direct attacks on female students and teachers in at least 18 countries, including bombings, abductions, sexual violence, and forced “marriage,” often driven by ideological, religious, or military motives. These attacks have severe long-term consequences for girls, such as loss of education, early marriage, stigma from sexual violence, and socioeconomic disempowerment, exacerbating pre-existing gender inequalities. GCPEA’s study focuses on teh types and couses of abuse aginst female. Inequalities intensify during conflict, leaving women and girls particularly vulnerable. GCPEA conducted this study to better understand the impact of attacks on education for girls and women and to strengthen advocacy for strategies that protect them, prevent such attacks, and reduce their harmful consequences.
A Geneva Dialogue on the Right to Education was held on 18 and 19 June 2024 and organized by the Swiss Commission for UNESCO, UNESCO, the University of Geneva, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), and the REGARD network.
The rich sessions provided an opportunity to examine the trends, challenges, and opportunities related to equitable access to quality education. Discussions focused on the impact of privatization, digitalization, and crises on the right to education, as well as the effectiveness of human rights mechanisms in addressing these 21st-century challenges.
The results of these discussions are published in this synthesis report, highlighting the lessons learned and recommendations for strengthening the right to education.
In October 2024, the Special Rapporteur on the right to education, presented her report on AI in education, emphasiaing a human rights-based approach to its regulation. She showed AI's potential to advance access to education, particularly for individuals with disabilities and remote communities, while cautioning against its risks, such as undermining human connection, increasing digital divides, and excluding minority groups. The report calls for legal and political frameworks, inclusive stakeholder participation, and training for educators and students to ensure the responsible use of AI. She stressed that AI must not replace teachers and warned against the commercialisation of education, urging states to integrate AI responsibly into educational systems. She emphasises the need for international collaboration, ethical guidelines, and addressing algorithmic biases to align AI with the goal of equitable, quality education for all.
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.