On July 3 2018, RTE’s Director, Delphine Dorsi, participated in a side event of the Human Rights Council called 'Privatisation, civil society schools and human rights', organised by the Permanent Mission of Portugal at the United Nations and OIDEL. Ms. Dorsi presented the development of human rights guiding principles on states’ obligations regarding private actors in education, giving examples related to civil society schools. About 30 participants, including 10 state representatives attended the side event.
The report of the event is available here.
Ignasi Grau from OIDEL opened the discussion providing an overview of the privatisation issue, highlighting the different types of private actors and criteria to take in consideration when assessing their role from a human rights perspective.
Louis-Marie Piron from OIEC talked about the role of catholic education in the realisation of the right to education, emphasizing the importance for private actors to contribute to the general interest and respect essential human rights principles such as non-discrimination in the access to education.
Maria Smirnova, one of the experts of the drafting committee, provided during her participation more specific explanations of the freedom dimension to the right to education. The comments on the Guiding Principles made during the event will be shared with the drafting committee
For more information on the privatisation of education, please click here.