Aligned with our advocacy efforts towards U.N. mandate holders to continuously strengthen public education and human rights standards, as well as address crucial issues affecting the right to education, the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR), Actionaid, Amnesty International, the Coalition for Transparency and Accountability in Education (COTAE), the East African Centre for Human Rights (EACHRights), the Initiative for Social and Economic Rights (ISER), and the Mouvement Ivoirien des Droits Humains (MIDH) submitted a joint contribution to the thematic report on “The Right to Education, Advances and Challenges” of the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, which will be presented to the Human Rights Council in June 2023. 

The submission focuses on part II of the call: “Main challenges and crucial issues for the future”. It answers to item 9 of the questionnaire: What are the crucial issues to address, nationally as well as internationally, to ensure the realization of the right to education? 

The signatory organisations brought into the attention of the Special Rapporteur three critical issues to address, nationally and internationally, to ensure the right to education: 

1. Commercialisation of education  

2. Digitalisation of education  

3. Environmental education 

GI-ESCR and partners recommend to the Special Rapporteur on the right to education to maintain and expand the efforts done by her predecessors and address the crucial issues mentioned above. 

*Picture used was taken from https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-education