Reports

Education is a fundamental human right under international law. While it should be a right that everyone is entitled to, migrants face multiple challenges in the enjoyment of their right to education.

This report presents information collected in the scope of the Lusophone Network for the Right to Education (ReLus) on the situation of guaranteeing the right to education during the moment of emergency caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. It is launched as part of the Brazilian Action Week for Education 2021 and intends to present a comparative exploratory study on the challenges faced in the context of different Portuguese-speaking countries and the emergency policies adopted.

In recent decades, governments have made considerable efforts to provide education for all. However, a large gap remains between international commitments, such as the Sustainable Development Goal 4, and the actual achievement of inclusive and equitable quality education for all. As a result, certain actors often critique public education as ineffective and inefficient, and thus incapable of addressing this issue. They argue for privatisation as a solution, deeming private providers as more innovative and effective than public ones.

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.

In the present report, submitted pursuant to Human Rights Council resolutions 8/4 and 44/3, the Special Rapporteur on the right to education considers the cultural dimensions of the right to education, which are crucial to ensuring that the universal right to inclusive and quality education is realized, as called for in Sustainable Development Goal 4. The Special Rapporteur calls for the right to education to be viewed as a cultural right – that is, as the right of each person to the cultural resources necessary to freely follow a process of identification, to experience mutually rewar

Free to Think 2020 analyzes 341 attacks on higher education communities in 58 countries between September 1, 2019 and August 31, 2020.

Free to Think 2020 analyzes 341 attacks on higher education communities in 58 countries between September 1, 2019 and August 31, 2020.

This UNESCO study provides a global overview and an analysis of the adoption of legal provisions for free and compulsory pre-primary education at national level. The analysis, prepared by UNESCO in cooperation with the ‘Right to Education Initiative’, is based on research carried out on qualitative data for 193 UNESCO Member States conducted by UNESCO, and complemented by in-depth research on 17 countries carried out by the ‘Right to Education Initiative’.

This report prepared by the technical team of the UNESCO International Institute for Higher Education (IESALC), in the first instance, highlights the immediate impacts of the pandemic on the university higher education sector, both for the different actors and for the institutions and the system as a whole. Some impacts, which are not immediately visible, are unfortunately very significant and will surface in the medium and long term. Secondly, it reviews what actions governments and HEIs have taken to guarantee the right to higher education during the pandemic.