Primary education is the focus of the report because the original reasons for declaring it to be each child’s birthright remain unchanged. Eighty years ago, the rule that governments should make education free and compulsory had been extrapolated from the practice of the industrialized countries and adopted by ‘the international community’ of the time, which thereby laid down an excellent strategy against child labour. That model was carried into the universally guaranteed right to education, which the United Nations had loudly proclaimed and then quietly betrayed. Globally, drivers of education are a bank (which does not advocate free public services because by definition they do not make money) and governments of countries that are exporting their education services (which would lose billions if education became a free public service). The global division of labour keeps human rights in their place, as sugar-coating for the bitter pill of economic exclusion. Worse, challenges of such exclusion are often impeded by the denial that education is a human right. But then, human rights work cannot be easy by definition. To their credit, many former students of mine are carrying on, undeterred.
The laws, policies and practices in 170 individual countries have been examined to document whether the right to education is recognized or denied, to discern why this is so, and to highlight the impact of the model that was chosen or imposed. The Nordic model, where education is a free public service, stands out in opposition to access to education dependent on the ability to pay its cost, which has become a global norm. This free or for-fee dichotomy guides this report.
Right to education, Human rights-based approach, International humanitarian law, Monitoring & measuring human rights, Whole school approach, Poverty / Economic Disadvantage
