Reports

Alternative report submitted in November 2014 to the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) at its 54th Session for its consideration of the List of Issues for Chile. The report calls on UN human rights experts to question the government of Chile about the human rights violations resulting from its privatised education system.

In this report submitted to the UN General Assembly , the Special Rapporteur on the right to education examines State responsibility in the face of the explosive growth of private education providers, from a right to education perspective. He emphasizes the need to preserve education as a public good, which must not be reduced to a profit-making business. He also underlines the importance of the principles of non-discrimination and equality of opportunity, as well as social justice and equity.

Parallel Report submitted by the Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition and the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, with the support of the Africa Network Campaign on Education For All, the Privatisation in Education Research Initiative, the Right to Education Initiative, the Global Campaign for Education and Education International to the Pre-sessional Working Group of the Committee on the Rights of the Child on the occasion of the consideration of the List of Issues related to the Periodic Reports of Ghana.

This report includes a concept paper on the justiciability of the right to education.

Drawing upon a full range of case law, the report shows that adjudication of economic, social and cultural rights is possible, desirable and already being carried out by courts in all continents. The report addresses the legal and political objections to the justiciability of economic, social and cultural rights and confirms their justiciability.

In June 2014 the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR), together with the Privatisation in Education Research Initiative (PERI) held a series of events in Geneva focusing on privatisation and the human right to education: a Human Rights Council 26th Session Side Event and and an Expert Meeting on Privatisation in Education. The events were intended to foster discussion and engagement, as well as to raise awareness about this key emerging issue, which is having a profound impact on the realisation of the right to education globally.

This report by GCE and RESULTS shows that millions of girls are being forced out of school because of poverty, child labour, early child marriage, the threat of sexual violence, inadequate and poor-quality schools. The report examines 80 poor countries in terms of the gains they have made in girls’ education. 

The  report centres on the assessment of the educational attainments of students and the implementation of the right to education. The Special Rapporteur on the right to education underlines the importance of developing and applying national assessment systems which are in compliance with international human right norms, so that education meets the essential objectives assigned to it in human rights conventions.

The report, Education Denied: Israel’s Systematic Violation of Palestinian Children’s Right to Education, was prepared for the July 2011 High-Level Segment of UN-ECOSOC in Geneva, Switzerland and reviews the implementation of the education-related Millennium Development Goals (MDG) of the United Nations Development Agenda in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt).