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According to UNESCO, 264 million children and youth are still out of school around the world, and this is only accounting for the primary (61 million) and secondary school (203 million) age population. In particular, the poorest and most marginalised, including ethnic and religious minorities, persons with disabilities, girls, and populations experiencing conflict, are often systematically unable to access and complete a full cycle of quality education. The first volume of NORRAG Special Issue (NSI) is dedicated to examining international frameworks and national policy as well as the challenges of fulfilling the right to education in practice.

The inaugural issue of NSI on the Right to Education Movements and Policies: Promises and Realities aims to highlight the global and national level experience and perspective on guaranteeing the right to education, as outlined in international frameworks, national constitutions, legislation, and policy, when creating the required administrative structures to ensure that the right is respected, protected, and fulfilled for all.

The Issue is divided into six parts, each focusing on a specific theme of right to education policy and practice. The first part includes an article written by RTE staff on The Role of Court Decisions in the Realisation of the Right to Education, which draws on RTE's background paper on accountability for the GEM Report 2017-8.

 

Key resource

Le rapport recommande une série de mesures législatives, administratives et financières qui devront être adoptées pour faire du droit à l'éducation des personnes handicapées une réalité. Il désigne certains des obstacles qui portent atteinte au droit à l'éducation inclusive, sur la base des réponses envoyées par différents  Etats et organisations non gouvernementales. Le Rapporteur cite parmi les obstacles la divergence qui existe entre les textes juridiques et les ressources disponibles pour la concrétisation du droit l'éducation inclusive, ainsi que l'absence d'une véritable volonté politique dans ce sens. 

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Deaf children have a right to a quality education, like all other children, in a language and environment that maximises their potential. In this video, in conjunction with a global conference in Sydney on equality for deaf people, Human Rights Watch shows some of the challenges faced by deaf children and young people, and the opportunities sign language education offers them.


There is no robust evidence that private schools aimed at low-income families provide a better education than public schools in developing countries, according to GCE's new major report on for-profit, privatised education. The report sets out the corrosive consequences – greater inequality and social segregation – of increasing privatisation in education, and casts serious doubt on the ability of for-profit, low-fee private schools to achieve quality education for all.

‘Low-fee’ private schools have been put forward as way to fix the failings of public education systems in several developing countries, with advocates – which include the multinational publishing giant Pearson PLC, billionaires Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, the World Bank Group, and the UK’s Department for International Development - claiming they deliver a quality education, for the poorest families, at a low cost. Private Profit, Public Loss: why the push for low-fee private schools is throwing quality education off track explores these claims and, on examination of a broad spread of evidence, finds such claims wanting. In reality, such schools worsen social inequality by creating an unfair system where the quality of a child’s education is determined by how much their family can afford to pay.

The report argues that governments must stop this dangerous experiment with these for-profit, private schools and instead commit to improving their public education systems. With proper funding, strong policies, and plenty of political will, governments can provide a free, quality education that’s accessible to everyone.

The report finds that these schools:

  • Stay low-fee by providing low quality: chronic underfunding of the education sector has led to dismal outcomes, but private schools are also performing poorly. Trained teachers are acknowledged by States as one of the most critical factors in realising quality – but they are being substituted for standardised lessons, often taught by tablet, and by teachers who in the most extreme situations have had only 4 days training.
  • Price families in poverty out of classrooms: In Nigeria, the average cost to send two children to a low-fee private school consumes almost 40% of the monthly minimum wage – yet 60% of the population live below the poverty line, earning at most only 72% of minimum wage.
  • Put up barriers for girls’ education: When parents in India, Pakistan, and Kenya couldn’t afford to enrol multiple children, evidence shows boys are often picked over girls to go to school.
  • Fail to reach children with disabilities: Even if parents of children with disabilities can afford the fees, their children can be discriminated against, or even flatly denied admission, as one study in Nepal found.

The report outlines a path to providing quality education for all children, but warns that there are no quick fixes. Governments should stop subsidising private schools and instead fully fund public schools. This includes well-trained teachers, qualified support staff, and school facilities which are fit for purpose. In addition, public schools must be accountable and transparent to curb corruption and misuse of funds, while private schools must also be held to account and regulated to ensure they are meeting national education standards.

Smarter tax policies can help provide countries with the funds needed for these improvements. The report notes that the IMF estimates that developing countries lose US $200 billion a year due to companies using tax havens. Just 20% of that would be enough the cover the shortfall in funds needed to provide everyone with a quality education.

Donor governments and institutions should support these policies and boost their own levels of aid, which the report says have stagnated and fallen in recent years. The report warns that diverting the funds which do exist to for-profit private sector providers will further erode already weak public systems, and deny another generation of their right to free, quality education.

Key resource

Education is a fundamental human right of every woman, man and child. In states’ efforts to meet their commitments to making the right to education a reality for all, most have made impressive progress in recent decades. With new laws and policies that remove fees in basic education, significant progress has been made in advancing free education. This has led to tens of millions of children enrolling for the first time and the number of out of school children and adolescents falling by almost half since 2000. Important steps have also been taken with regard to gender parity and states have made efforts to raise the quality of education through improved teacher policies and a growing emphasis on learning outcomes. 

Despite these efforts, breaches of the right to education persist worldwide, illustrated perhaps most starkly by the fact that 262 million primary and secondary-aged children and youth are still out of school. Girls, persons with disabilities, those from disadvantaged backgrounds or rural areas, indigenous persons, migrants and national minorities are among those who face the worst discrimination, affecting both their right to go to school and their rights within schools.

To respond to the challenges, the Right to Education Initiative (RTE) with UNESCO have developed this handbook to guide action on ensuring full compliance with the right to education. Its objective is not to present the right to education as an abstract, conceptual, or purely legal concept, but rather to be action-oriented. The handbook will also be an important reference for those working towards the achievement of SDG4, by offering guidance on how to leverage legal commitment to the right to education as a strategic way to achieve this goal. 

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Este informe se presenta con arreglo a la decisión 1/102 del Consejo de Derechos Humanos, y analiza uno de los temas de especial interés para el Relator Especial sobre el derecho a la educación: el derecho de las personas con discapacidad a una educación inclusiva. El derecho a una educación inclusiva implica la posibilidad de que todos los niños, niñas y adolescentes, independientemente de sus condiciones o diferencias, aprendan juntos. El paradigma de la educación inclusiva surge como respuesta a las limitaciones de la educación tradicional, calificada como patriarcal, utilitarista y segregadora, así como a las insuficiencias resultantes de la educación especial y de las políticas de integración de estudiantes con necesidades especiales dentro del sistema regular de educación.

El concepto de educación inclusiva se encuentra implícitamente comprendido en el párrafo 1 del artículo 13 del Pacto Internacional de Derechos Económicos, Sociales y Culturales, en los artículos 29 y 23 de la Convención sobre los Derechos del Niño; y expresamente, entre otros, en la Declaración de Salamanca y marco de acción para las necesidades educativas especiales, aprobados por la Conferencia Mundial sobre Necesidades Educativas Especiales: Acceso y Calidad en 1994 y en la recientemente adoptada Convención sobre los derechos de las personas con discapacidad, que establece la obligación de los Estados de asegurar un sistema de educación inclusiva.

El informe recomienda una serie de medidas legislativas, de gestión y financieras que deberán ser adoptadas con el fin de que este derecho sea una realidad. Igualmente, se identifican algunos de los obstáculos que atentan contra el derecho a la educación inclusiva, con base en las respuestas enviadas por varios Estados y organizaciones no gubernamentales (ONG) a un cuestionario remitido por el Relator Especial, que tuvo por objeto constatar el nivel de aplicación de las normas internacionales en la materia. Entre otros obstáculos, se cita la discrepancia existente entre el marco jurídico y los recursos disponibles para la realización del derecho a la educación inclusiva, así como la falta de una verdadera voluntad política para tal fin.

 

[ENGLISH]

Education is the right of every child. It empowers children to thrive. It helps promote greater civic engagement and peaceful communities. It is the most effective investment against child poverty and one of the best economic investments a country can make. This is why every child should be in school. Every child must have access to quality education, so they can fulfill their potential. In the State of Palestine, very few children of primary school age are excluded from education, but nearly five per cent of 10-15-year-old children and one out of three 6-9 year-olds with disabilities are out of school. The aim of this study is to identify who these excluded children are, where they live, and to understand why they are not in school.
 
Based on a global initiative led by UNICEF and UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics, it aims at providing a more in-depth analysis, using a unique conceptual and methodological framework to develop comprehensive profiles of out-of-school children and link them to the barriers and bottlenecks that led to school drop-out. It takes into consideration a variety of factors such as socio-economic factors, the quality of education, and the influence of the environment, the community and the school. This study aims not only at understanding what barriers and bottlenecks prevent access to school, but also at taking action about it. Based on research findings, it proposes practical ways of removing these barriers to get children back to school, and to keep the children who are at risk of dropping out in school. By promoting and implementing sound policies that address exclusion, we can make a substantial and sustainable reduction in the number of out of school children.

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.

 

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