This report tells the stories of some of the world’s 6.4 million refugee children and adolescents under UNHCR’s mandate who are of primary and secondary school-going age, between 5 and 17. In addition, it looks at the educational aspirations of refugee youth eager to continue learning after secondary education, and examines the conditions under which those who teach
refugees carry out their work.
Education data on refugee enrolments and population numbers is drawn from UNHCR’s population database, reporting tools and education surveys and refers to 2016. The report also references global enrolment data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics referring to 2015.
Sixteen years after the US-led military intervention in Afghanistan ousted the Taliban, an estimated two-thirds of Afghan girls do not attend school. The aim of getting all girls into school was never fully realised, and the proportion of students who are girls is even falling in some parts of the country. The vast majority of the millions of Afghan children not in school are girls, and only 37 percent of adolescent girls are literate, compared to 66 percent of adolescent boys.
'I won’t be a doctor, and one day you’ll be sick: Girls’ access to education in Afghanistan' is based on 249 interviews in Kabul, Kandahar, Balkh, and Nangarhar provinces, most with girls who were kept from completing their education.
The report describes how, as security in the country worsens and international donors disengage, progress made toward getting girls into school is at risk. Afghanistan’s government provides fewer schools for girls than boys. Many children live far from a school so are not able to attend, which particularly affects girls. About 41 percent of schools have no buildings, and many lack boundary walls, water and toilets—disproportionately affecting girls. Girls are kept home due to gender norms that do notvalue or permit their education, or due to security concerns. A third of girls marry before age 18, and forces many girls out of school.
The report calls on the Afghan government, and its international donors, to increase girls’ access to education through protecting schools and students, institutionalising and expanding models that help girls study, and taking concrete steps to meet the government’s obligation to provide universal free and compulsory primary education.
The second edition of the Global Education Monitoring Report (GEM Report) presents the latest evidence on global progress towards the education targets of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
With hundreds of millions of people still not going to school, and many not achieving minimum skills at school, it is clear education systems are off track to achieve global goals. The marginalised currently bear the most consequences but also stand to benefit the most if policy-makers pay sufficient attention to their needs. Faced with these challenges, along with tight budgets and increased emphasis on results-oriented value for money, countries are searching for solutions. Increased accountability often tops the list.
The 2017/8 GEM Report shows the entire array of approaches to accountability in education. It ranges from countries unused to the concept, where violations of the right to education go unchallenged, to countries where accountability has become an end in itself instead of a means to inclusive, equitable and high-quality education and lifelong learning for all.
The report emphasises that education is a shared responsibility. While governments have primary responsibility, all actors – schools, teachers, parents, students, international organizations, private sector providers, civil society and the media – have a role in improving education systems. The report emphasises the importance of transparency and availability of information but urges caution in how data are used. It makes the case for avoiding accountability systems with a disproportionate focus on narrowly defined results and punitive sanctions. In an era of multiple accountability tools, the report provides clear evidence on those that are working and those that are not.
This research provides an overview of the trajectories and forms of education privatisation in Nepal, with a special focus on low-fee and chain schools. In doing so, it seeks to contribute to the ongoing, critical debate about the relationships between students’ rights to quality education, teachers’ rights to quality working conditions, equitable access to schools and the regulation of private actors in education. It used a mixed methodology, comprising desk research, and field work (survey and interviews). The major focus of the desk research was on: (i) identifying and analysing the growth trajectory of privatisation; (ii) examining the overall policy, practice and legislative environment in which the private sector has proliferated; and, (iii) identifying prominent private actors and issues related to equity and social justice in Nepal’s education sector. The fieldwork was comprised of case studies of two types of private schools – (i) the Samata Shiksha Niketan Schools (a low-fee private school chain), and (ii) the schools operated by Chaudhary Group (CG). For the purpose of case studies, five Samata and three CG schools were selected. The case studies were conducted using a survey questionnaire and semi-structured interviews amongst teachers, students, school principals, and promoters/owners. Throughout the process of data collection, interpretation and analysis, special emphasis was given to gender as a cross-cutting perspective.
This research report examines how international human rights treaties and UN human rights mechanisms (i.e., human rights treaty bodies and special procedures) have addressed gender stereotypes/stereotyping. The report seeks to:
- define key concepts (e.g., gender stereotypes/stereotyping)
- identify and map international human rights obligations related to gender stereotypes/stereotyping
- analyse how, in the view of UN human rights mechanisms, gender stereotypes/stereotyping harm women and violate their human rights
- pinpoint and explore some of the key challenges in addressing gender stereotypes/stereotyping, as revealed in the work of the UN human rights mechanisms
In the present report, the Special Rapporteur reviews the role of equity and inclusion in strengthening the right to education, in particular in the context of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. The Special Rapporteur concludes by calling for states to take significant, positive actions to tackle discrimination, inequity and exclusion in education to ensure that the Sustainable Development Goals are met.
A lo largo de las últimas décadas, las políticas pro privatización han cobrado un lugar central en muchos procesos de reforma educativa a escala global (Burch, 2009). El avance de estas políticas se explica parcialmente por el impacto de una serie de factores comunes de carácter externo –incluyendo presiones derivadas de la globalización económica o el rol de organizaciones internacionales con una preferencia por las soluciones de mercado. Sin embargo, en su implementación, estas políticas no responden a un modelo homogéneo en cuanto a sus fines, sentidos, diseños y temporalidades. Por el contrario, diversos condicionantes de carácter interno, sociopolíticos, institucionales, demográficos e históricos propios de cada contexto nacional y/o subnacional han dado como resultado distintas trayectorias de privatización educativa con características específicas (Verger, Fontdevila, & Zancajo, 2016).
En América Latina, las políticas pro privatización han asumido un rol protagónico singular en los procesos de reforma educativa, especialmente a partir de la década de 1990 (Bellei & Orellana, 2014). La consecuencia más evidente –aunque no exclusiva– de estos procesos ha sido la creciente participación de agentes privados en la provisión educativa bajo diversos arreglos institucionales. En las últimas décadas, de hecho, América Latina ha sido la región del mundo en la que la privatización de la provisión educativa ha crecido de forma más acusada y constante (Verger, Moschetti, & Fontdevila, 2017). A su vez, como rasgo particular y paradójico, los procesos de privatización en la región corrieron en paralelo al creciente ingreso a la educación pública de sectores sociales largamente excluidos del acceso a este derecho (Bordoli & Conde, 2016). El interjuego de ambos procesos no ha hecho más que poner de manifiesto las contradicciones y desafíos que enfrentan los estados de la región en materia de integración e igualdad.
See chapter six for information on gender equality in education.
This report, Charters and Consequences, is the result of a year-long exploration of the effects of charter schools and the issues that surround them. Each of its eleven issues-based stories tells what the Network for Public Education (NPE) have learned not only from research, but also from talking with parents, community members, teachers, and school leaders around the nation who have observed the effects of charters on their communities and neighborhood schools.
While stories of individual charter successes are well covered by the media, substantive issues surrounding the explosion of charter school growth are too often brushed aside. The purpose of this report is to bring those issues to light.
The objectives of this study are to:
- understand why boys have been underperforming in education over the past few years
- analyse factors (including economic, societal, and cultural) that are causing the trend of poor performance and low survival rates at higher levels of education
- describe current policies and interventions in place to address the issue