On 12 June 2014, during the June Session of the Human Rights Council, the Portuguese Mission, together with Privatisation in Education Research Initiative (PERI) and the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR), convened a side-event on privatisation and its impact on the right to education at Palais des Nations in Geneva. In this podcast, Iracema Nascimento dos Santos, from the Brazilian Campaign for the Right to Education shares the Brazilian case.
There has been renewed and amplified interest in learning outcomes as a tool for improving quality of education – an issue of central focus in the Post-2015 discussions. There are numerous learning outcomes assessment tools and methodologies. However, missing from the debates is a human rights perspective. This briefing document, Learning Outcomes Assessments: A Human Rights Perspective, seeks to highlight the key human rights principles that should inform education policies on learning outcomes to ensure that these tools are used to promote quality education that develops the child’s personalities, talents, and abilities to live a full and satisfying life within society. It also provides recommendations to policy-makers to ensure that education policies on learning outcomes adhere to human rights standards.
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 report provides analysis of legal minimum ages for education, marriage, employment and criminal responsibility across 187 countries and raises questions regarding the cross-section of these issues and their effect on the right to education. Based on States Parties’ reports to the CRC Committee and analysed through the lens of the 4As, the report stresses the fundamental importance of eliminating contradictory legislation and practices that still undermine the right to education.
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).
This factsheet on 10 Human Rights Standards for Education Privatisation is intended to serve as a tool for education and human rights advocates on the topic of the privatisation of education and the right to education. It provides basic information on the right to education as it relates to education privatisation, focusing on the most central international human rights legal standards that relate to privatisation. The factsheet may be used to raise awareness among government officials, policy-makers, donors, teachers, private education providers, and other education stakeholders. It will also aid civil society organisations in understanding education privatisation as a human rights issue and in developing a rights-based position.
This country factsheet on Kenya is intended to assist practitioners identify the key national laws and policies relevant to the right to education; analyse their strengths and weaknesses; and detect the gaps between laws and policies, and practice; in order to use the empirical data collected to help define a human rights-based advocacy strategy.
It provides an overview of the obligations of the government to realise the right to education: the instruments (laws, policies, and budget) and mechanisms (commissions, courts, etc) that exist in the country to implement the right to education, and recommendations made by various national and international stakeholders (UN Agencies, NGOs…).
The Right to Education Initiative, with the support of international and British organisations as well as teachers' unions have submitted a report to the Committee on the Rights of the Child about the UK's support of the growth of private actors in education through its development aid: questioning its responsibilities as regards its human rights extra-territorial obligations.
The report raises concern about the increased use of British aid money to support for-profit schools, in particular so-called ‘low-fee’ private schools, which are fuelling inequality, creating segregation and undermining the right to education.
The report finds that the UK’s policies in support of private education through its development aid are problematic and that the country could be violating its extra-territorial obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in two regards:
- Firstly, the UK’s support for for-profit, fee-charging private schools that do not reach the poorest is questioned in light of the UK’s obligations to fulfil the right to education, including the right to free quality education without discrimination;
- Secondly, the UK’s responsibility is questioned in particular in relation to its own impact assessments that have been conducted on its policies of providing support to private schools and which have concluded that projects supporting private education providers are less likely to target the most marginalised, and that more research needs to be carried out on the impact of private schools in developing countries on, among other elements, the efficiency of “low-fee” private schools.