Learn more from our international youth ambassadors – Join our digital launch event

This afternoon at 4 PM (GMT), the GEM Report will host a digital launch event for the 2017/8 Youth Report.

The digital launch will bring together some of the key youth ambassadors for the GEM Report #WhosAccountable campaign on the right to education, including:

• Dr Koumbou Boly Barry, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education,
• Salam Al-Nukta, Global activist for education and women’s rights, Syria. TEDxyouth/women organizer, founder of the ChangeMakers initiative, and youth representative to the GEM Reports Advisory Board
• Helge Schwitters, President of the European Students’ Union and a student at the University of Oslo, Norway.
• Victoria Ibiwoye, youth representative of the SDG Education 2030 Steering Committee from Nigeria;
• Vivian Onano, Partnerships Manager of the SEED Project from Kenya; and
• Dylan Barry, who headed up the #FeesMustFall student protest economic Research task team in South Africa.

The presenters will share their first-hand experience of campaigning around the right to education and dos and don’ts for future campaigners!

GEM launches new campaign to help citizens claim their legal Right to Education

Although the majority of countries recognize the right to education through international and national law, the fulfilment of the right to education is far from being a reality. This is why we have launched a campaign to make sure the right to education is enforceable in countries around the world. Citizens should be able to take their governments to court if they violate this right.  If they can’t, a vital backstop in accountability is missing.

The UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) shows that 264 million children and adolescents are still out of school, with girls in most countries the first to be excluded. Refugees, migrants and internally displaced people escaping from conflicts, natural disasters or economic hardship face huge challenges to access education. As our WIDE database shows, other marginalized groups, such as children from indigenous or minority backgrounds, and the poor also continue to encounter barriers to the right to education. The lack of access to and violations of the right to education result from discriminatory practices, weak legal safeguards, poor execution of policies and inadequate budget allocations for education by governments.

On 8 December, the GEM Report launched a youth campaign, #WhosAccountable to support the enforcement of the right to education ahead of Human Rights Day, celebrated on December 10. Launched in collaboration with nine global youth ambassadors, and over 15 national and international education partners including the Right to Education Initiative, Equal Education and the Global Partnership for Education, the Campaign calls on young people to come together, exercise their collective voice, and call on governments to make sure the right to education is enforced.

Students play a vital role in holding governments to account for education

The youth version of the 2017/8 Global Education
Monitoring (GEM) Report on accountability was released today.  It contains a call to action in the form of a global campaign, #WhosAccountable, to support the enforcement of people’s right to education ahead of Human Rights Day, celebrated on December 10.

The fifth Youth Report produced by the GEM Report team continues the tradition of asking young people to give their take on the 2017/8 GEM Report’s key findings. It shows that youth play a vital role in holding governments accountable for equitable, quality education.

Everyone has a role to play in improving education

It would be easy to sit back and assume that achieving equitable, quality education for all is up to governments and international organizations. However, young people have responsibilities in education too.  “Our education system is a framework or a puzzle where each actor has its role, and when one of them breaks the chain, the whole system is impacted” explains Filomena a high-school student from Brazil. For example, students have to turn up to classes, adhere to codes of conduct on good behaviour and focus on learning. Just as governments should be held to account for meeting their responsibilities, students shouldn’t be let off the hook for theirs.

Students also play an important role in holding others to account if they fail to meet their responsibilities. This includes being part of social movements and protests and getting involved with higher education governing boards and committees.

Fighting female genital mutilation: Education matters

There are approximately 45 million girls of primary and secondary school age not going to school in sub-Saharan Africa according to the UIS – more than in any other region. Our 2017/8 report showed that across 18 countries in the region, gender-based violence, as measured by intimate partner violence, early marriage and female genital mutilation, was one of the factors that pushed girls out of school. It’s time for these abhorrent practices to stop.

Female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) may not seem a large-scale problem. Yet, while the exact number of girls and women worldwide being subjected to the practice remains unknown, what we do know is that at least 200 million girls and women in thirty countries have been victims of the practice, with the highest concentrations in sub-Saharan Africa. In some countries, such as Somalia, for instance, 98% of girls and women, aged 15 to 49 years have undergone FGM/C.

Percentage of girls and women aged 15 to 49 years who have undergone female genital mutilation, by country. Source: UNICEF 2013

With large scale migration, the practice is not confined to poor countries. For example, in the past year, 9,000 cases were attended to by the National Health Service of the United Kingdom and cases have almost tripled since 1990 in the United States. While the prevalence is falling worldwide, sadly the number of cases may still rise due to population growth. If current trends continue, 15 million more girls between ages 15 and 19 will be subjected to the practice globally by 2030.

Due to deeply entrenched social and cultural practice in many places, it is commonplace for girls aged below 10 years to be pulled out of formal education, and forced to take part in sometimes heinous traditional female initiation ceremonies, such as cutting. In many contexts, the social norm upholding the practice is so powerful that families have their daughters cut even when they are aware of the long-term physical harm it can cause. Indeed, as reported in a UNICEF report, there is a high degree of discrepancy between the low support for FGM/C and the high prevalence of its practice. This just goes to show the strength of a tradition, and the extent of the battle ahead of us if we are to stop it.

A penalizing system of accountability in Australia exacerbates equity gaps in education

This blog is written by Dr. Emma Rowe, Lecturer in Education in the School of Education, Deakin University, and the author of a case study on accountability and education in Australia commissioned for the 2017/8 GEM Report. The blog is part of a series showing that accountability in education is shaped by a country’s history and political, social, and cultural context.

Background: Australia’s education system

Australia’s education system is fundamentally centralized. Central bodies (federal or state) fund schools and make key decisions on curriculum. However, decentralization of schools has remained the over-arching goal of successive governments.  The 2004 Act stipulates that schools maintain the authority to recruit their own staff, develop their own school charters, elect independent school councils and operate and determine their own budget. In 2014, the federal government legislated Independent Public Schools with the aim to make one-fourth of public schools in Australia autonomous and decentralized.

 

Politicians and policy-makers tend to regard the improvement of standardized test results as the primary challenge. The 2013 Act aims ‘for Australia to be placed, by 2025, in the top 5 highest performing countries’ in terms of OECD PISA results. However, the Federal Review of Funding also found a ‘significant gap between the highest and lowest performing students in Australia, relative to other OECD countries’, estimated at 3 to 3.5 years. Schools significantly influence student educational outcomes due to clustering of low socio-economic status students. Rural and remote schools are more likely to serve lower socio-economic status cohorts of students, and struggle for resources, including experienced teachers. And almost half of Australia’s population consists of first- or second-generation migrants.

A primary stated aim for Australia is to achieve high-quality and high-equity education and to be competitive within the global landscape. Our current policies around accountability are designed in such a way to meet this objective. But these policies rely heavily on standardized testing and utilize punitive means of accountability. A penalizing system of accountability exacerbates equity gaps.

The Global Compact for Migration will go on – with or without the United States – for the sake of education

7 year old Khadija from Syria returns home after attending class at the open accommodation site of Volos, Greece. Our assessment found that Syrian child refugees in Greece had been out of school for an average of 26 months. © UNHCR

The United States has just announced they are pulling out of the United Nations Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. On 19 September 2016, the United Nations General Assembly hosted a high-level Summit to discuss ways in which Member States could better respond to large movements of migrants and refugees. At that Summit, all 193 Member States unanimously adopted the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants (Resolution 71/1).

The adoption of the Declaration launched a process of negotiations that will culminate in the adoption in 2018 of a Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, as well as, through a separate process, a Global Compact on Refugees. The responsibility of assisting migrants and refugees will be shared more equitably across countries through increased international cooperation. Member States committed to “fully protect, the human rights of all refugees and migrants, regardless of status.”

Among these rights is the right to education, which is not contemplated anywhere in a unique document for migrants and refugees. A global agreement on migration, in all its various forms, therefore, would be a real novelty. As our recent GEM Report argued, having the back up of such a Compact would be a useful accountability tool for all the millions of migrants being denied an education today. 

The Republic of Korea’s experiment with outcomes-based accountability

This blog is written by Pearl J. Chung, Education Specialist for the Korean Ministry of Education, the author of a case study on accountability and education in the Republic of Korea commissioned for the 2017/8 GEM Report. The blog is part of a series showing that accountability in education is shaped by a country’s history and political, social, and cultural context. 

Background: The Republic of Korea’s education system

In the Republic of Korea, the central education authority has had a major role in the decision-making process setting standards for primary, elementary, and secondary education. At the municipal level, Metropolitan and Provincial offices of education and local offices of education have been managing budgets and school facilities. The government began to grant more autonomy to local offices of education and schools in the 1990s, as it underwent a process of democratization. It now supports the development of a localized curriculum. The Ministry of Education has also decentralized decision-making process with regard to the implementation and organization of the national curriculum. However, some see this as a strategy not to empower schools but to control them. In reality, the central education authority has carried out policies with little input from other stakeholders. In addition, teachers, by law, are to follow the national curriculum and use centrally recognized and/or approved textbooks for teaching and learning.

 

Accountability is part of the Korean education system, generally used to improve the quality and outcome of education. In particular, key actors in education (e.g. central education authority, local offices of education, superintendents, educators, and students) are held accountable through parliamentary hearings, inspections, and/or evaluations. One of the contentious issues is its outcomes-based accountability system, which links incentives to test results to improve educational outcomes. This blog explores how the notion of outcomes-based accountability has emerged and transitioned in Korea and looks at its current status and implications.

Education reforms to promote outcomes-based accountability

The Republic of Korea started to put more emphasis on accountability in the 1990s. The Presidential Commission on Education Reform (PCER) adopted a comprehensive education reform plan called the Education Reform Proposal (ERP) in 1995, which included a call to improve accountability in education. In the proposal, words often used in economics such as autonomy, competition, diversity, and ‘consumer need’ were included for the first time.

In 2008, the Lee administration dramatically increased outcomes-based accountability. The ‘Zero plan for below-basic students’ was launched to guarantee zero percent of students with low academic performance and thereby enhancing Korea’s educational competitiveness.

Having a disability shouldn’t affect your access to education

Everyone has the right to education but for some people accessing this education is far harder than it should be. Marking December 3, which is the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, we are focusing on some of the barriers preventing people with disabilities attending school and receiving an education of good quality.

Outcomes don’t match commitments

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities had a rapid ratification rate, with 87% of countries ratifying within 10 years of adoption. Only the Convention on the Rights of the Child had a faster ratification rate. Article 24 of the Convention calls for the development of inclusive education at all levels: countries must ensure their laws both promote the right of persons with disabilities to education at all levels and allow them to learn alongside other students in inclusive schools, for example through individual education plans: the 2017/8 GEM Report found that constitutions, laws or policies in 42 of 86 countries explicitly referenced inclusive education.

However, the interpretation of ‘inclusive education’ varies significantly, and there is a large divide between mandated policies and actual outcomes. In several countries, various factors, including resource shortages or resistance to the idea of inclusive education, mean that what is promised does not materialize.

In countries such as Serbia and Turkey, over 35% of schools were affected by material shortages that significantly impeded provision of instruction to students with special needs. In Jordan, transport challenges, inadequate physical environments and lack of harmonization of curricula commensurate with the needs of persons with disabilities mean that inclusive programmes are not properly implemented.

South Africa: Watching accountability in action

This blog is written by Dr Remy C Nnadozie, Director: Institutional Planning, Rhodes University, and the author of a case study on accountability and education in South Africa commissioned for the 2017/8 GEM Report. The blog is part of a series showing that accountability in education is shaped by a country’s history and political, social, and cultural context.

Background: South Africa’s education system

South Africa is a constitutional democracy with a three-tier system of government and an independent judiciary. The national, provincial and local levels of government all have legislative and executive authority in their own spheres. As part of the apartheid policy (1948-1991), the Bantu Education Act of 1953 enforced racial segregation of education systems, including resources and curricula. Schools in the Black African communities were severely under-resourced and the consequences of this Act are still observable today.

The Department of Basic Education has the responsibility of managing and the content, values, techniques and curriculum for all schools in South Africa up to Grade 12, including adult literacy programmes. Particular importance is placed on the results of the MATRIC examinations.

 

One of the most transformative and liberal constitutions in modern history

The South African Constitution was adopted in 1996 following the installation of democratically elected government structures in 1994. Chapter 2 of the Constitution enforces the right to education, which has been implemented with some notable court judgements. The case of the Western Cape Forum for Intellectual Disability versus Government of the Republic of South Africa is an example in which a court of law – the Western Cape high court – ruled that the State has a duty to provide equally for the education of all children, including those with various forms of disabilities.

Despite the declared intentions of the government, parts of the South African education system still face challenges. For example, many schools in South Africa do not have the required resources for effective teaching and learning. In terms of infrastructure and staffing, the majority of schools in the townships and rural areas are still regarded as under resourced. Accountability, from both the government and the community level can help address some of the shortcomings in education.

Stronger accountability can help ensure cases of gender-based school violence are reported (part 2)

As part I of this blog showed, violent behaviour is rife in schools, and sometimes perpetrated by teachers themselves. Addressing the issue requires a multilevel approach, including effective laws and policies, relevant curricula and learning materials, educator training and support, partnerships between education and other sectors, and monitoring and evaluation. Accountability, and particularly accountability of teachers, is crucial to tackling the problem, as the latest GEM Report and this blog shows:

1. Legislation must be strengthened to address teacher misconduct and gender violence. National laws, plans and policies addressing school-related gender-based violence should clearly state that government institutions will not tolerate violent behaviour. Some countries, including Chile, Fiji, Finland, Peru, the Republic of Korea and Sweden, have legislation referring to violence in education institutions. In other countries, including Ireland, Singapore and the United Kingdom, anti-discrimination, human rights and equality laws address such violence in the absence of specific legislation.

Supporting policies to implement legislation are equally crucial. In 2011, Palestine adopted a national strategic plan running to 2019 to combat violence against women. It provides a complementary policy framework and interventions, including strengthening the role of qualified counsellors, developing monitoring and accountability mechanisms and revising curricula.