Privatisation

It has recently been suggested that the age of human rights is over. The West, itself often not respecting human rights, is said to have abused the concept as a tool to retain control over the developing world. Human rights have remained a foreign construct in Africa, the Near East, and Asia. They have "underperformed," and the level of privation in many parts of the world is more intense than ever. This Article acknowledges elements of truth in these observations, but argues that the battle for human rights is not lost.

Joint Oral Statement: New report takes firm approach to the implementation of the right to education and Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4), delivered at the 41st session of the Human Rights Council during the presentation of the UN Special Rapporteur on right to education's report about the implementation of the right to education and Sustainable Development Goal 4 in the context of the growth of private actors in education. 

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.

Education is a fundamental human right of every woman, man and child. In states’ efforts to meet their commitments to making the right to education a reality for all, most have made impressive progress in recent decades. With new laws and policies that remove fees in basic education, significant progress has been made in advancing free education. This has led to tens of millions of children enrolling for the first time and the number of out of school children and adolescents falling by almost half since 2000.

This report, conducted in the context of Mauritania's review by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, seeks to advance the discussion and analysis of the privatisation of education in Mauritania. It examines the inroads made by private stakeholders in this region, and their impact.

This paper highlights key concluding observations adopted between September 2014 and November 2017 by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), the UN Committee on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) regarding the role of private actors in education in Ghana, Chile, Morocco, Uganda, Kenya, Philippines and Brazil.

The publication highlights the low funding of public education which is leading to its decline and consequent growth in privatisation of education. The study also focuses on the private schools’ failure to follow the norms and regulations set out by the Nepali Constitution, as well as the government’s failure to ensure the implementation of these requirements. It also warns that private schools are leading to greater segregation and gaps within the society, between rich and poor, and boys and girls.