Privatisation in Education and Gender Rights

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. For this purpose, the Committee held a half-day discussion on the topic on 7th July 2014. NGOs and experts were also invited to send written contributions by 20th June 2014 (more information here).

The GI-ESCR and the Right to Education Initiative prepared a contribution on the impact of the privatisation in/of education on girls’ right to education. Both organisations have been conducting research and reflecting on privatisation in/of education from a human rights perspective and would like to draw to CEDAW’s attention to some of the impacts privatisation has on girls’ education. The final contribution submitted, summing up some of the key findings of the impact of the growth of private actors in education on gender can be found here: http://bit.ly/1S7onmQ

Key resources:

• Article, The danger of corporate power to the realisation of girls’ right to education, in BUWA Issue 7

• Joint Submission on the impact of privatisation of education on gender inequality.

• Report to CEDAW on Ghana: http://bit.ly/CEDAWPrivatisationGhana

• Concluding observations of CEDAW on Ghana: http://bit.ly/1LnbTrY and press release: http://bit.ly/1u0KEX6