Privatisation

Joint statement made by GI-ESCR and the Right to Education Initiative at the 44th session of the UN Human Rights Council in July 2020 welcoming the report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education on the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the right to education.

In this report, the Special Rapporteur examines the implementation of the right to education and Sustainable Development Goal 4 in the context of the growth of private actors in education. She presents the Abidjan Principles on the human rights obligations of States to provide public education and to regulate private involvement in education, and recommends their full implementation. She recalls that international human rights law requires States to provide free, quality, public education.

This report examines public-private partnerships in education, which are inextricably linked to rapidly expanding privatization. The Special Rapporteur highlights their implications for the right to education and for the principles of social justice and equity.

In this report, the Special Rapporteur looks with concern at the rapid increase in the number of private education providers and the resulting commercialization of education, and examines the negative effects of this on the norms and principles underlying the legal framework of the right to education as established by international human rights treaties. He highlights the repercussions of privatization on the principles of social justice and equity and analyses education laws as well as evolving jurisprudence related to privatization in education.

France’s investment in the education multinational Bridge International Academies (BIA) has raised serious concerns regarding the extraterritorial obligations (ETOs) of France, in relation to the rights set out in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), particularly, the right to education.

In this case, ISER successfully petitioned the High Court seeking declarations to the effect that the government policy on public financing of secondary education in Uganda infringes on the rights to; equality and non – discrimination; and quality education as guaranteed under Articles 21; and 30 and 34(2) of the Constitution respectively.

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