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GI-ESCR joins MIDH to launch a report on the privatisation of education in Côte d'Ivoire

Sylvain Aubry

The Mouvement Ivoirien des Droits de l’Homme (MIDH), a human rights civil society organisation, launched today in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, a report supported by GI-ESCR on the effects of privatisation and commercialisation of education at the primary and secondary levels in Ivory Coast. The event gathered a range of education stakeholders, including ministry officials, the UNESCO country representative, and civil society organisations.

During the event, the executive summary of the full report was released. The full report is due for publication next week. The research, which is based on field and secondary research, and interviews with 194 stakeholders, shows that the education policies in Ivory Coast are undermining a range of human rights obligations, as measured against the latest human rights standards, the Abidjan Principles on the right to education:

  • Private delivery of education at the primary and secondary level, after having declined steadily until 1992, moving down from over 20% of students in private primary schools in 1970s to 9.5% in 1992, is growing back to reach 15.5% in 2021. This is a political choice, related to low investment in education and policies to support private involvement.

  • Since 1992, investment in education has moved from about 5% of GDP, with peaks at 8%, since the 1970s, to just around 4% of GDP nowadays.

  • This situation has raised a range of issues that undermine the right to education, including:

    • Discrimination and inequalities in access to education, with 40% (primary level) to 60% (secondary level) of the parents indicating having difficulties paying school fees, and around 70% of those explaining that their child had to be expelled of the school because of that. Similarly, only 0.7% of the private schools have ramps for children with disabilities.

    • Lack of availability of public schools, with between 72% and 85% of the parents interviewed indicated they had to choose a private school out of lack of choice for a public option.

    • Growing commercialisation, in particular through misleading marketing of private actors, especially during COVID-19, where online commercial actors such as Eneza Education were promoted by and the large-scale selling of various education items and services in schools, that transform themselves

    • Poor regulation, with for instance a number of illegal primary schools identified during the study, and teachers in private primary schools finding it challenging to have their labour rights respected: over 85% of the teachers interviewed declared that their remuneration was below the minimum level, while 73% of the primary school teachers and all of the secondary school teachers interviewed indicated not belonging to a union.

    • Lacking participation of the parents in the private schools, with only 12% (primary level) and 32% (secondary level) of the interviewed parents being aware of a teacher-parent association at their school.

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