The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) is preparing a General Recommendation on girls and women’s right to education, which is a document produced by the Committee to give guidance on the interpretation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

Human Rights Watch has published a report on the exclusion of children from marginalised groups from accessing education in India.

Uncontrolled privatisation of various essential social services has grown in the last two decades, whether it be prisons, health, water, or land, with devastating impacts for the enjoyment of human rights without discrimination. Education, which had been relatively saved until now, has become in the last years the new area in which investors are rushing into to make profit, with the support of major development agencies and international financial institutions.

Today, 14 April 2014, the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a Communications Procedure has entered into force following its ratification by the required 10 countries: Albania, Bolivia, Gabon, Germany, Montenegro, Portugal, Spain, Thailand, Slovakia and Costa Rica.

In Limpopo, a poor rural province in northern South Africa, there is a ongoing education crisis. Many schools do not have access to key components of the right to basic education, such as toilets, drinking water, desks, paper, chalk and even classrooms, to ensure a conducive learning environment.