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Human Rights Council side event

Privatization in Education and its Impact on the Right to Education

12pm, 12 June 2014 at the Palais Nations, Geneva

The global landscape when it comes to education is rapidly changing. One of the most notable of these changes is the recent trend towards privatization in education in many countries. The detrimental impacts related to private investment in provision of health care, water and sanitation infrastructure, and land, including ‘land-grabbing’, have increasingly been documented in recent years.  Privatization of education appears to be the new horizon that profit making investors are rushing into.

This trend is proving to have significant implications for the human right to education, both in terms of quality and accessibility of education. As the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education highlighted in a recent report about the Millennium Development Goals Post-2015 Framework: “in many parts of the world inequalities in opportunities for education will be exacerbated by the growth of unregulated private providers of education, with wealth or economic status becoming the most important criterion to access a quality education.”[1] Besides, privatisation questions and weakens the role of the State in one of the most essential social services, affecting issues from democratic participation to accountability  and also impacting many other human rights.

Further discussion and dialogue are needed within international human rights circles to shed light on these issues, and to highlight people's experiences where privatization in education is taking place. To help advance the discussion, the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and its partners, together with the Portuguese Mission will be convening a side event during the June 2014 session of the Human Rights Council to be held at 12:00 on 12 June. The Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education will speak at the event, together with organisations from various countries on the front lines of the fight for the right to education who will share their stories and discuss how the human rights framework and mechanisms can engage in and respond to this issue.

We hope that you will be able to join the conversation on this key emerging issue!

Download the flyer here

For more information, check the dedicated page of the GI-ESCR on the topic and read more about the international advocacy on privatisation and the right to education conducted by the GI-ESCR. 

[1]               UN Doc. A/68/294, para. 26.