On 27 June 2023, GI-ESCR with the Right to Education Initiative (RTE) submitted a written statement supporting the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education’s report “Securing the right to education: advances and critical challenges”. 

In her report, 25 years after the establishment of the mandate on the right to education, the Special Rapporteur, Ms Farida Shaheed, reviews achievements, particularly on how the right to education is understood today and the obligations it entails, as well as contemporary and emerging issues that need to be considered to ensure the right to education for all, today and in the future. 

The written statement welcomes the Special Rapporteur’s holistic approach to education, embracing all its dimensions and recalling the need for an expanded vision of the right to education through life and a commitment to education as a public common good.

Furthermore, it reinforces the Special Rapporteur’s remarks on 

• The need for reinforcing the implementation of the right to education, including through accountability and monitoring processes, stressing that this cannot be achieved without adequate financing; 
• Financing education, which is a legal obligation under international law and entails the allocation of maximum available resources for the progressive realisation of the right to education, including resources that could potentially be mobilised, in particular through progressive taxation; 
• Prioritising the funding of free, high-quality public education and ensuring that it is truly inclusive and ensuring that private actors’ involvement is regulated and support given to private educational institutions meet certain requirements, as laid down in the Abidjan Guiding Principles on the human rights obligations of States to provide public education and regulate private actors’ involvement in education (Abidjan Principles).   
• Understanding the profits-driven agenda of digital technology companies amidst the rapid development of the digitalisation of education to safeguard against private interests that could be detrimental for the realisation of the right to education for all.  

Here is our statement: