Following the Iranian revolution of 1979, due to their affiliation with political or religious groups, a great number of Iranian students were temporarily or permanently deprived of their right to education. Many students were expelled from university for membership in non-Islamic groups. In recent years the number of students whom organizations under the supervision and control of the Iranian regime has banned or “starred” from education has increased dramatically.
The Right to Education Report aims to raise awareness by providing comprehensive reporting on cases of student rights violations and any other form of education deprivation in Iran throughout the last three decades.
Scholars at Risk announces the release of Free to Think, a report of the Academic Freedom Monitoring Project. The culmination of four years of monitoring and analysis by SAR staff and researchers around the world, the report analyzes 333 attacks on higher education communities in 65 countries from January 2011 to May 2015, demonstrating the pressing need to raise awareness and document attacks on higher education:
- There is a crisis of attacks on higher education communities around the world.
- Attacks on universities, scholars and students are early warning signs of political, social and cultural insecurity.
- Universities and scholars are critical parts of national infrastructure that is essential to rebuilding conflict torn states.
The report calls on all stakeholders, including the international community, states, the higher education sector, civil society and the public at large to undertake concrete actions to increase protection for higher education communities, including documenting and investigating attacks, and holding perpetrators accountable.
This report prepared by the technical team of the UNESCO International Institute for Higher Education (IESALC), in the first instance, highlights the immediate impacts of the pandemic on the university higher education sector, both for the different actors and for the institutions and the system as a whole. Some impacts, which are not immediately visible, are unfortunately very significant and will surface in the medium and long term. Secondly, it reviews what actions governments and HEIs have taken to guarantee the right to higher education during the pandemic. Finally, it considers various scenarios, and offers some observations and recommendations with regard to the reopening of HEIs, and highlights the importance of initiating preparations at the earliest.
Free to Think 2020 analyzes 341 attacks on higher education communities in 58 countries between September 1, 2019 and August 31, 2020. The report draws on data from SAR’s Academic Freedom Monitoring Project and identifies trends related to attacks on higher education communities, including violent attacks on campuses in Afghanistan, India, and Yemen; wrongful imprisonments and prosecutions of scholars; restrictions on academic travel, deployed most prominently by authorities in Israel, Turkey, and the United States; pressures on student expression included sustained pressures in Colombia, India, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and South Africa; and legislative and administrative threats to university autonomy, including in Brazil, Ghana, Poland, Romania, Russia, and Turkey.
Free to Think 2020 analyzes 341 attacks on higher education communities in 58 countries between September 1, 2019 and August 31, 2020. The report draws on data from Scholars At Risk’s Academic Freedom Monitoring Project and identifies trends related to attacks on higher education communities, including violent attacks on campuses in Afghanistan, India, and Yemen; wrongful imprisonments and prosecutions of scholars; restrictions on academic travel, deployed most prominently by authorities in Israel, Turkey, and the United States; pressures on student expression included sustained pressures in Colombia, India, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and South Africa; and legislative and administrative threats to university autonomy, including in Brazil, Ghana, Poland, Romania, Russia, and Turkey.
In the present report, submitted pursuant to Human Rights Council resolutions 8/4 and 44/3, the Special Rapporteur on the right to education considers the cultural dimensions of the right to education, which are crucial to ensuring that the universal right to inclusive and quality education is realized, as called for in Sustainable Development Goal 4. The Special Rapporteur calls for the right to education to be viewed as a cultural right – that is, as the right of each person to the cultural resources necessary to freely follow a process of identification, to experience mutually rewarding relations his or her life long, to deal with the crucial challenges facing our world and to engage in the practices that make it possible to take ownership of and contribute to these resources.
What is unique about this approach is its conception of educational life as a living relationship between actors (students, educators, organizations and other associated actors) and collections of knowledge that form shared cultural resources, vectors of identity, values and meaning, without which action is impossible.
Inclusion should be a principal commitment from early childhood. According to the latest estimates from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, the number of children not enrolled in pre-school in the year before primary school has decreased over the past decade, from 52.1 million in 2009 to 47.2 million in 2018. Despite this progress, the large number of children still excluded from pre-school is a major concern, given the strong evidence linking access to inclusive early childhood care and education (ECCE) with school success, overall development, and well-being. Early childhood services aim to provide for all children equally, but when the most vulnerable children are excluded or ignored, universal participation is unattainable. Many children are denied access because of gender, disability, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, geographic location, language, refugee or displaced status, or due to a humanitarian crisis or natural disaster. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated this exclusion. Today, more than ever, it is vital to intensify advocacy and concrete efforts to guarantee the right of every child to ECCE by mobilizing the multiple actors working to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) and its targets related to inclusive early childhood education.
This publication presents and discusses both qualitative and quantitative data for a renewed, action-oriented global commitment to universal and inclusive early childhood services. The recommendations have emerged from a literature review and consultations with experts, practitioners, and academics from multiple countries. It is intended for policy-makers, managers of ECCE programmes and services, practitioners, development partners, families, and research institutions. It recommends measures to be taken by policy-makers in consultation with relevant actors in order to make ECCE more inclusive. The measures are supported by research and illustrated by inspiring examples from across the globe. This publication supports all stakeholders who are committed to make inclusion from early childhood a reality.
In recent decades, governments have made considerable efforts to provide education for all. However, a large gap remains between international commitments, such as the Sustainable Development Goal 4, and the actual achievement of inclusive and equitable quality education for all. As a result, certain actors often critique public education as ineffective and inefficient, and thus incapable of addressing this issue. They argue for privatisation as a solution, deeming private providers as more innovative and effective than public ones. However, shortcomings in public education often arise not from lack of capacity, but lack of political will.
This review of examples of public education in low- and middle-income countries shows that, in direct contrast to widely disseminated (and empirically unvalidated) ideas, public education can be highly effective, efficient and transformative and, crucially, it is possible to develop quality public education everywhere.
The Right to Education Initiative's Annual Report 2019 includes information about us, the activities we have undertaken as well as our key achievements and impacts in our thematic areas: Privatisation and human rights; Monitoring of the right to education; and the right to education of migrants.
This UNESCO study provides a global overview and an analysis of the adoption of legal provisions for free and compulsory pre-primary education at national level. The analysis, prepared by UNESCO in cooperation with the ‘Right to Education Initiative’, is based on research carried out on qualitative data for 193 UNESCO Member States conducted by UNESCO, and complemented by in-depth research on 17 countries carried out by the ‘Right to Education Initiative’.