Consultation on Human Rights Guiding Principles on private actors in education

The Drafting Committee of the Human Rights Guiding Principles on private actors in education has launched an online public consultation to request comments on the document capturing various consultations that took place in recent years with hundreds of stakeholders and experts on the right to education.

The outcomes of the online consultation will be used by the drafting committee and the Secretariat – made up of the Equal Education Law Centre and four ESCR-Net members: the Right to Education Initiative (RTE), the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR), the Initiative for Social and Economic Rights (ISER Uganda) and Amnesty International (AI) – to inform the final draft.

Since 2015, these five organizations have supported the development of these Guiding Principles that compile existing customary and conventional human rights law as it relates to the involvement of private actors in education. The text is intended to be the normative reference point and a key policy tool on the issue of private involvement in education. The Guiding Principles will be adopted by a group of recognized independent experts from around the world at an conference that is planned for February 2019.

As part of a broad consultative process, various regional and thematic consultations have been convened over the course of 2016, 2017 and 2018. Input has been collected from a wide range of stakeholders, including civil society organizations, State representatives, human rights organizations, academics, international and regional organizations, experts in the fields of education and law, and other actors, and is used to inform the work of the drafting committee.

The current document has been prepared by a Drafting Committee composed by ten experts acting in their individual capacity, including several individual ESCR-Net members.

The online consultation is open to general public from 29 August to 30 September 2018 and available here. The draft Guiding Principles is available to download here. For more information on the Guiding Principles please visit the FAQ page here.