This youth report, based on findings and conclusions from the 2017/8 Global Education Monitoring report, asks how young people are involved in the process of accountability in education. As students, what are we responsible for in our education and how are we held accountable? How can we make sure other actors–like schools, universities and governments–are held accountable for their responsibilities? These are critical questions, because we know that there’s a long way to go before all young people around the world have access to a quality education:
absent teachers, overcrowded classrooms, illegitimate diplomas, unregulated private schools and truancy are all issues that education systems are struggling to overcome.
It’s sometimes tempting to say that these problems aren’t ours to fix, that the responsibility lies with the government or with an older generation. But this simply isn’t true: education is a shared responsibility, and young people have an important role to play. In this Report, you’ll hear the stories of young people around the world who have stood up for the right to education in their communities and who have been integral in triggering change. You’ll also read about how you can become involved in our campaign to make sure governments can be held to account for education. This means making sure that citizens can take their governments to court if they are not meeting their education responsibilities. From creating video clips to holding awareness-raising events, there is a range of ways to make your voice heard. Your involvement is integral in making sure the world is on the right path to meeting our education goals.
The report focuses on the legal obligations of states and private entities to mobilise all resources at their disposal, including those that could be collected through taxation or prevention of illicit financial flows, to satisfy minimum essential levels of human rights and finds that states who facilitate or actively promote tax abuses, at the domestic or cross-border level, may be in violation of international human rights law.
The report is based on a detailed examination of UN treaty bodies and special procedures’ views on the current interpretation of the scope and content of this obligation to mobilise resources. Further, it is published against the backdrop of increased awareness of the relationship between economic policies and human rights and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development which committed all UN member states to ‘strengthen domestic resource mobilization, including through international support to developing countries, to improve domestic capacity for tax and other revenue collection’ and ‘significantly reduce illicit financial flows’.
This is brief on education and MDG 1 (Eradicate Poverty and Hunger), with a focus on target 1.B (Achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people). It highlights that education is critical in eliminating economic exploitation and key to ensure an economy that can lift people out of poverty.
This is a brief on MDG 2 (Achieve Universal Primary Education), with a focus on target 2.A (Ensure that, by 2015, all children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling). It highlights that quality education is a right, must be free and compulsory at least at the primary level, and must be a major part of the national budgets.
This brief is on education and MDG 3 (Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women), with a focus on target 3.A (Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015). It highlights that education is essential to eliminate discrimination and transform social attitudes and power relations.
This article aims at connecting economics, education and gender in the MDGs, inviting world leaders to reaffirm education as a human right and as a major driver of economic and social development.
This paper was prepared for the 2013 UKFIET International Conference on Education and Development for a discussion on using a rights based approach to setting post 2015 education goals. Education is a human right enshrined in a number of international human rights treaties and integrated at the national level through national constitutions, legislation, and policies. The human rights legal framework enunciates international standards that States must adhere to. Both MDGs and EFAs lack a robust accountability mechanism and are not explicitly linked to international human rights standards. This needs to change, as parallel frameworks should be complementary and mutually reinforcing. However, the Right to Education Initiative has observed a number of potential threats to education rights, such as privatisation, a reductionist approach to learning outcomes, watered down perceptions of equality, austerity measures, lack of accountability on legal guarantees, among others, at these early stages of consultation in the lead up to developing new education goals and targets. This paper explores the implications of some of these threats and how this may impact efforts to improve accountability.
This paper is the Right to Education Initiative’s contribution to the on-going discussions to refine the formulation of the post-2015 education goal and targets and to identify related indicators to measure progress towards them. This paper argues that there is a need to introduce a human rights perspective to the post-2015 agenda and furthermore that right to education indicators can give a fuller account of the progress made by States towards achieving the post-2015 goals. Before proposing specific indicators to measure the post-2015 education goal and targets (VI), the paper underlines the importance of linking the post-2015 education agenda to the right to education (II), and demonstrates how the post-2015 education goal and targets are linked to the content of the right to education (III) and extant State obligations (IV). This paper then reflects on the added value and limitations of applying right to education indicators (V).
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.
UNESCO’s 2019 Global Education Monitoring Report, Migration, displacement and education: Building bridges not walls, highlights countries’ achievements and shortcomings in ensuring the right of migrant and displaced children to benefit from a quality, inclusive education, a right that serves the interests of both learners and the communities they live in.
Read the report, here.