Higher education is too often dissociated from the right to education. In many countries tuition fees are on the rise, and only the privileged have access to, or succeed in completing, higher education, making it difficult to argue that there is an actual right to higher education to be enforced. However, international human rights law is clear: the right to education includes the obligation of states to ensure that higher education is made accessible to all based on capacity.
In addition, states have an obligation to progressively introduce free higher education, an obligation which is yet to be implemented globally. Confronted with drastic changes worldwide in terms of rising inequalities, human movement, growing digitalization and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is high time to clarify existing obligations as well as what aspects of the right to higher education might require further explanation considering new contexts and challenges.
This publication aims to help guide policy-makers, civil society and the international education community, to fully enforce the right to higher education and ensure that the human-rights based approach is placed at the heart of the higher education debate.
The Right to Education Initiative's 2020 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, whose contribution is noted in this report.
In 1995, the parents of an Indian pupil brought a case against University of Natal because her application to medical school was rejected despite the satisfactory results she obtained in her qualifying examinations. They claimed that the admission process was discriminatory because it did not consider all the applications equally, but set higher admission standards for Indian students and lower ones for African students. The parents argued that this is as a violation of ‘equal access to educational institution’ provision of the constitution as well as sections 8(1) and 8 (2) in regard to ‘setting a discriminatory practice’. The Court agreed that while Indian community had been decidedly disadvantaged by the apartheid system, African pupils were even more so. Accordingly, the Court held that a selection system which compensated for this discrepancy does not violate the provisions of sections 8(1) and 8(2) of the Constitution.
Statement made by the Right to Education Initiative along with 68civil society organisations from all over the world welcoming the publication on 24 November 2022 of the landmark General Comment No. 7 on State obligations under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights in the context of private provision of public services by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
The final report of outgoing UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education, Ms Koumbou Boly Barry, addressing the right to early childhood care and education (ECCE), highlights the wide ranging ‘developmental, educational, social, cultural and economic benefits’ of ECCE to children, their families and wider society, and urges states to recognise and enshrine ECCE rights from birth until primary school, significantly calling for a more specific legal instrument to be established to complement the protections already established in international human rights instruments.
This report reflects a milestone in the realisation of young children’s right to education, and thus paves the way for long-term change and improvement to education systems, entrenched inequalities, and cohesive social development.
We wish to offer our sincere thanks to the outgoing Special Rapporteur Koumbou Boly Barry and acknowledge her for giving precedence to the right to education of young children in her report, and also for the overall contribution towards the realisation of the right to education during her mandate.
This statement synthesises some of the key information contained in the outgoing Special Rapporteur's report, and acknowledges her contribution across the two terms of her mandate.
The climate emergency, rising inequalities and the COVID-19 pandemic have reaffirmed the failures and limitations of the current neoliberal model to respond to crises and ensure a dignified life for all. Transformation in the organisation of our economy is needed in order to confront the challenges the world is currently facing and to create societies that are fair, inclusive, socially-just, equitable and sustainable.
To this end, actors from a diverse range of movements, sectors and regions have, in recent years, been mobilising to reclaim and rebuild public services as the foundation of a fair and just economy that works for all. Key milestones have included the first global “Future is Public” conference held in Amsterdam 2019, which brought together over 400 participants to discuss strategies for putting the “public” back into public services and to build democratic public ownership of the economy, and the launch of the collective civil society Global Manifesto on Public Services in October 2021, signed by over 200 organisations.
From 29th November to 2nd December over a thousand representatives from over one hundred countries, from grassroots movements, advocacy, human rights, and development organisations, feminist movements, trade unions, and other civil society organisations, met in Santiago, Chile, and virtually, to discuss the critical role of public services for our future.
Following the meeting, the Santiago Declaration on Public Services was adopted by a drafting group representing all sectors, on the basis of the notes and discussions during the four days.
We are at a critical juncture. At a time when the world faces a series of crises, from the environmental emergency to hunger and deepening inequalities, increasing armed conflicts, pandemics, rising extremism, and escalating inflation, a collective response is growing. A large movement is building and concrete solutions are emerging to counter the dominant paradigm of growth, privatisation and commodification.
Hundreds of organisations across socio-economic justice and public services sectors, from education and health services, to care, energy, food, housing, water, transportation and social protection, are coming together to address the harmful effects of commercialising public services, to reclaim democratic public control, and to reimagine a truly equal and human rights oriented economy that works for people and the planet.
We demand universal access to quality, gender-transformative and equitable public services as the foundation of a fair and just society.
Our Future is Public: Join our call for universal access to quality, gender-transformative and equitable public services as the foundation of a fair and just society. Read the Declaration, and endorse it here.
'RTE welcomes the Tashkent Declaration’s call for an enhanced legal framework and increased public expenditure for ECCE' was written by RTE following the adoption of the ‘Tashkent Declaration and Commitments to Action for Transforming Early Childhood Care and Education at the UNESCO World Conference on Early Childhood Care and Education.
This statement summarises the most significant aspects of the Tashkent Declaration and our perspectives on the importance of this document for the protection of young children's ECCE rights.