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Ensuring The Right To Education For Vulnerable Groups
Education is a human right to which everyone is entitled, at all times. However, in conflict situations and emergency contexts, states often have difficulty guaranteeing and protecting the right to education, particularly for already marginalized vulnerable groups. The COVID-19 pandemic has further revealed the lack of resiliency of education systems with pre-existing inequalities accentuated, further learning losses, deterioration in health and well-being and student drop-out.
During emergencies, education is not generally viewed as life-saving, yet the value of education for those affected is consistently highlighted by parents and learners themselves as crucial in bringing stability, emotional and physical protection, and continuity. Education can also help all those affected by emergencies to reintegrate back into society and, in the context of conflicts, education may play a role in preventing further such occurences.
In consequence, UNESCO works to ensure that the international community acts to minimize the harmful effects of emergency situations as human rights law applies across all contexts.
What international obligations exist?
The right to education is non-derogable, which means states are not permitted to temporarily limit its realization during a state of emergency unless the limitation clause in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) is invoked. This must be justified. States are also bound by the minimum core obligations even during times of crisis.
International humanitarian law further establishes that during civil conflicts, children shall receive an education, including religious and moral education consistent with the convictions of their parents or guardians (Additional Protocol II to the Geneva Conventions).
For refugees, the Refugee Convention (1951) ensures that the contracting states accord to refugees the same treatment accorded to nationals with respect to elementary education.
There is no convention for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), however, the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (1998) are relevant as they state that IDPs – in particular displaced children - shall receive free and compulsory primary education.
Failures To Protect And Fulfill The Right To Education Through Global Development Agendas
An increase in school enrolments from 40 to 60 percent is applauded as a success, not recorded as a violation of the right to education of the 40 percent of children who remain excluded from school.
-Katarina Tomasevski, former United Nations special rapporteur on the right to education, 2006
Across the world, more than 120 million children and adolescents are absent from class.
In recent years, many countries have been part of international and regional political drives to ensure that all children have access and complete education in the countries that lag behind the most. Such efforts have had some success, with tens of millions entering primary education, and more girls staying in school and pursuing secondary education, improving gender parity in more countries.
Yet despite these and other advances, warnings sounded by the UN and global policy experts indicate that the global progress in education has "left behind" millions of children and young people. More children and adolescents are at risk of dropping out of school, and many are at school facing unsuitable learning conditions.
Behind this failure stands governments, which bear responsibility for ensuring that no child or young person is without education, and lack of focus—both in implementation and in content—in development agendas on governments' human rights obligations.
This has resulted in an "education deficit"—a shortfall between the educational reality that children experience around the world and what governments have promised and committed to through human rights treaties. This not only undermines the fundamental human right to education, but has real and dire consequences for global development, and entire generations of children.
The benefits of education to both children and broader society could not be clearer. Education can break generational cycles of poverty by enabling children to gain the life skills and knowledge needed to cope with today's challenges. Education is strongly linked to concrete improvements in health and nutrition, improving children's very chances for survival. Education empowers children to be full and active participants in society, able to exercise their rights and engage in civil and political life. Education is also a powerful protection factor: children who are in school are less likely to come into conflict with the law and much less vulnerable to rampant forms of child exploitation, including child labor, trafficking, and recruitment into armed groups and forces.
196 member states have adopted legal obligations towards all children in their territories, and countries that ratify specific international and regional conventions are legally bound to protect the right to education and to follow detailed parameters as to how to do so.
Based on research in over 40 countries, this report looks at the key barriers that threaten the right to education today, and the key ways that governments are failing to deliver on core aspects of their right to education obligations. These include ensuring that primary school education is free and compulsory and that secondary education is progressively free and accessible to all children; reducing costs related to education, such as transport; ensuring that schools are free of discrimination, including based on gender, race, and disability; and ensuring schools are free of violence and sexual abuse. It also looks at the main violations and abuses keeping children out of school, including those that occur in global crises, armed conflict—particularly when education is attacked by armed groups,—and forced displacement.
This report finds that many of the same governments that have signed on to development agendas and form part of global partnerships—including among the 16 champion countries that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed in September 2012 to "lead by example" to promote education globally—are those that are also failing many of their school-aged children.
In the new era of sustainable development, where all countries are expected to implement a universal development agenda, all governments need to be held to account for ongoing human rights abuses affecting a significant part of their young population, as well as a failure to provide adequate or timely protections to which children are entitled under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The Education Deficit in NumbersWeak government monitoring mechanisms, lack of zero-discrimination policies, lack of accountability for children who drop out of education, and unchecked power wielded by school officials as to who goes to school and who stays out are among the factors contributing to governments' failures to ensure the right to quality education for children who have traditionally endured discrimination.
Moreover, a global push for universal primary education through development agendas has, in some cases, unintentionally led to less political and financial attention being paid to the right to secondary education, resulting in millions of adolescents being unable to continue their studies. As this report shows, these are children and adolescents who are at high risk of exploitation for child labor, early marriage or teenage pregnancy, as well as girls and young people with disabilities whose chance of receiving secondary education is already limited by systemic and discriminatory barriers.
Ending the Education DeficitFirst and foremost, ending the education deficit means ensuring every child has a quality primary and secondary education—without the financial and systemic obstacles many face today—and that relevant governments tackle the numerous violations, abuses, or situations that keep children out of school. This in turn depends on political will to institute strong governance systems, including via the judiciary, to uphold and fulfill the right to education.
It also depends on international actors who set policy globally and engage in education through technical and international cooperation.
Donors, multilateral financial bodies—including the World Bank and the Global Partnership for Education,—and international agencies that help governments to implement ambitious education plans should recall their responsibilities to uphold human rights standards and not compromise on key abuses that leave children out of school. This is particularly the case with international actors working with governments unwilling to provide greater protections to minorities, refugees, or persons who have been made stateless; or in cases where governments do not allocate sufficient resources to underserved areas or particular groups of children, particularly children with disabilities.
The UN should continue to hold all governments to account for violations of the right to education. Globally, any champion country or government representative appointed to lead on global education issues must first abide by international human rights standards for all children in its territories and abroad, in cases where they also play a key role as donors, and be open to scrutiny by its own national civil society, as well as UN bodies reviewing its performance.
All governments should:Education is a basic right enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)—the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history, ratified by all states except the United States—as well as in many other UN and regional treaties. International human rights law makes clear that all children have a right to free, compulsory, primary education, free from discrimination. State Parties should also ensure different forms of secondary education are available and accessible to every child, and take appropriate measures, such as the progressive introduction of free education and offering financial assistance in case of need.
State parties to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) must submit an action plan on how they will guarantee free and compulsory primary education to all children within two years of ratifying this treaty.
Right to Access Inclusive, Quality EducationThe Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) promotes "the goal of full inclusion" while at the same time considering "the best interests of the child." Children with disabilities should be guaranteed equality in the entire process of their education. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the United Nations human rights agency, states that:
The right of persons with disabilities to receive education in mainstream schools is included in article 24 (2) (a), which states that no student can be rejected from general education on the basis of disability. As an anti-discrimination measure, the "no-rejection clause" has immediate effect and is reinforced by reasonable accommodation… forbidding the denial of admission into mainstream schools and guaranteeing continuity in education. Impairment based assessment to assign schools should be discontinued …. The legal framework for education should require every measure possible to avoid exclusion.
International law provides that persons with disabilities should access inclusive education on "an equal basis with others in the communities where they live," and governments must provide reasonable accommodation of the individual's requirements, as well as "effective individualized support measures in environments that maximize academic and social development." The government must ensure that children are not excluded from the education system on the basis of their disability.
Duty to Ensure Reasonable AccommodationThe CRPD places an onus on governments to ensure that "reasonable accommodation of the individual's requirements is provided" and that "persons with disabilities receive the support required, within the general education system, to facilitate their effective education."
The CRPD defines "reasonable accommodation" as any "means necessary and appropriate modification and adjustments not imposing a disproportionate or undue burden, where needed in a particular case, to ensure to persons with disabilities the enjoyment or exercise on an equal basis with other of all human rights and fundamental freedoms."
According to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, a government's duty to provide reasonable accommodation is "enforceable from the moment an individual with an impairment needs it in a given situation … in order to enjoy her or his rights on an equal basis in a particular context." In assessing "available resources" to guarantee "reasonable accommodation," governments should recognize that inclusive education is a necessary investment in education systems and does not have to be costly or involve extensive changes to infrastructure.
Quality of EducationAccording to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, "Every child has the right to receive an education of good quality which in turn requires a focus on the quality of the learning environment, of teaching and learning processes and materials, and of learning outputs."
Under the Convention Against Discrimination in Education, states must "ensure that the standards of education are equivalent in all public educational institutions of the same level, and that the conditions relating to the quality of the education provided are also equivalent."
The CRPD includes the right to access quality learning, which focuses and builds children's abilities, and for children with disabilities to be provided with the level of support and effective individualized measures required to "facilitate their effective education."
Progressive Realization of the Right to EducationEducation, an economic, social, and cultural right, entails state obligations of both an immediate and progressive kind. This set of rights is subject to progressive realization, in recognition of the fact that states require sufficient resources and time to respect, protect, and fulfill these rights. However, according to the Committee for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, steps towards the Covenant's goals must be taken "within a reasonably short time after the Covenant's entry into force" and "such steps should be deliberate, concrete and targeted as clearly as possible towards meeting the obligations." The Committee has also stressed that the Covenant imposes an obligation to "move as expeditiously and effectively as possible towards that goal."
The OHCHR provides further clarification: "The treaties impose an immediate obligation to take appropriate steps towards the full realization of economic, social and cultural rights. A lack of resources, or periods of economic crisis, cannot justify inaction, retrogression in implementation or indefinite postponement of measures to implement these rights. States must demonstrate that they are making every effort to improve the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights, even when resources are scarce."
International Cooperation and AssistanceThe CRC and ICESCR refer to the need for international assistance and cooperation to support the progressive realization of human rights.
According to the OHCHR, "all Member States of the United Nations and United Nations agencies should respect and observe human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without discrimination in their international cooperation ... They should also respect the human rights obligations that the recipient country has accepted under international as well as national law. They should ensure that their cooperation will not undermine the recipient country's efforts to realize human rights, including economic, social and cultural rights, and ideally facilitate and support such efforts.
In September 2015, all United Nations member states agreed to work together to "ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning" by 2030 as part of the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This was the latest international initiative aimed at tackling inequality in, and lack of access to, education.
In 2000, education ministers from most of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)'s member states had gathered in Dakar, Senegal, to adopt the Education for All Framework (EFA) with six comprehensive goals overseen by UNESCO, including goals to reach gender parity in education, and increase youth literacy rates. Global leaders gave themselves 15 years to accomplish these fundamental goals.
That same year, all UN member states signed onto the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which aimed, among other things, to ensure all children complete primary education and that an equal number of girls and boys remain in school.
Five years after that, in 2005, the international community acknowledged the enormous barriers children—including the 100 million out of school—faced receiving an education, including lack of quality education, school fees and related expenses, discrimination, and widespread violence in schools. Certain at-risk populations, such as children with disabilities, were not even mentioned in the MDGs, resulting in a lack of targeted efforts and limited or no data on their enrollment or access to education.
In 2010, the initial emphasis on progress in education faltered, as domestic investment and multilateral and bilateral donor funding dedicated to education decreased dramatically as donors reduced their global aid budgets or diverted existing funds to other sectors, dealing a setback to ensuring children receive primary and secondary education.
In an effort to revitalize global support for education, in 2012 UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched the UN's Global Education First Initiative and appointed 16 champion countries to help him give a "big push" to the global movement for education by 2015 and beyond." He called on world leaders and all involved in education to join the initiative and "fulfil the promise to make quality education available to all children, young people and adults."
In 2015, in view of the continued dwindling of global aid to education, 21 global leaders, co-convened by the Norwegian Prime Minister and the Presidents of Chile, Indonesia, and Malawi, were appointed to an International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity, "to reverse the lack of financing for education around the world." In 2016, UNESCO's Global Education Monitoring Report warned that if countries were serious about implementing the SDG on education, aid had to increase at least six times to cover the annual financing gap of US$39 billion.
This serves as a grim reminder that the world has yet to fulfil its original promise to provide every children with a primary education by 2015.
— UNESCO, Global Education Monitoring Report, 2015
Millions of children have no access to education, or in some cases, interrupt their education, because of ongoing human rights abuses, and governments' failures to provide adequate protections they are entitled to under the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) or to counter abuses perpetrated by state and non-state actors.
All children have a right to go to school, to have equal access to education at all levels, and to be guaranteed a quality education. While many governments have focused on legislating the right to primary education, the right to secondary education—both lower and higher—remains unprotected and unfulfilled in many countries.
Guaranteeing equal access to schools to all children satisfies one basic component of the right to education. However, without a quality education, children may leave schools unmotivated, illiterate, and unprepared for life after education. The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child underscores that "the key goal of education is the development of the individual child's personality, talents and abilities, in recognition of the fact that every child has unique characteristics, interests, abilities, and learning needs." Governments need to ensure that "no child leaves school without being equipped to face the challenges that he or she can expect to be confronted with in life."
To make this happen, governments should put in place mechanisms to ensure education is widely available to all children on an equal and inclusive basis. As Kofi Annan, then-UN Secretary-General said in 2000: "More than buildings are required, however. Schools must be accessible, have qualified teachers and offer such amenities as textbooks and supplies for the poor."
The following sections outline numerous human rights violations and key barriers to children being able to claim their right to education.
The Cost of Going to SchoolMost [students at] mainstream schools don't have to pay. But for us, we have to pay school fees. Lots of parents who have children with disabilities can't work—we have to take care of them 24 hours. Schools write to ask why we haven't paid but they don't understand our situation. The schools are away from our locations. All the [care dependency] grant is going towards the fees, so there's no money for transport… and our children have equal rights?
—Father of an eight-year-old boy with autism, Johannesburg, October 2014
The Universal Declaration on Human Rights of 1948 includes the right to free education "in the elementary and fundamental stages," and reinforces the compulsory nature of elementary education.
Since then, most governments have accepted, through their ratification of various human rights treaties, a legal obligation to ensure primary education is free and compulsory, and to gradually make secondary education free and available to all. According to the World Policy Analysis Center, a global social protection research and data initiative, only six countries in the world charge formal tuition fees at primary level, 22 charge fees in lower secondary, and 35 in upper secondary.
Fees in Primary SchoolsWhile many governments have adopted policy measures to expand free primary education to all children, some have not translated their international obligations into national legislation, which binds governments to provide free primary education to all children in their territories. The lack of political will to move towards fully "free" education, and to oversee an adequate implementation at the local level, has a very significant impact on children from the poorest families or children who belong to traditionally excluded groups.
South Africa's constitutional protections of the right to basic education have long been used as a progressive model for other constitutions. Although the government has taken numerous steps to remove financial barriers for the poorest students, primary and secondary education are not automatically free in constitutional obligations or education legislation. While the majority of the school population can access "no fee schools" or fee waivers, Human Rights Watch research found that many thousands of children with disabilities who go to public schools are expected to pay significantly high school fees and pay for other conditional expenses which children without disabilities do not pay in public schools. This is a discriminatory practice.
Fees in Secondary SchoolsI passed [the exam] to go to secondary school. My mother did not have money to send me to secondary school. She then forced me to get married saying it was improper for me to stay at home.
—Amber T. (pseudonym), 18, married at 15, Kahama, Tanzania, April 2014
Governments have an international obligation to make secondary education accessible and available to all children, and to progressively make secondary education free or take measures to fund students requiring financial assistance. According to UNESCO, a growing number of young adolescents are also out of school, with the global total reaching almost 65 million in 2013. Adolescents of lower secondary school age—ranging from 12 to16 years—are almost twice as likely to be out of school as primary school-age children, with 1 out of 6 not enrolled.
Yet, many governments have struggled to expand the availability of secondary education in line with demand from primary school graduates, and have not built enough infrastructure to cater to the increased demand for further levels of education. In countries like Tanzania or Bangladesh, Human Rights Watch has found that access to secondary education is often limited through national assessments in the form of primary school exams, which filter the number of students passing through to secondary education, and school fees.
Families often incur further financial obligations when their children proceed on to secondary education. Limited availability of secondary schools in rural or remote areas means students may have to pay to travel very long distances on a daily basis or rent rooms or pay for boarding facilities in bigger towns.
Parents may also prevent girls from accessing further levels of education due to costs and safety concerns when provision of education is limited. Human Rights Watch has found a strong correlation between child rights violations, such as the early marriage of girls under the age of 18, or the worst forms of child labor, and the expenses associated with secondary education.
Bangladesh has the highest rate of child marriage of girls under the age of 15 in the world, with 29 percent of girls in Bangladesh married before age 15, according to the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF). Successive inaction by the central government and complicity by local officials allows child marriage, including of very young girls, to continue unchecked, while Bangladesh's high vulnerability to natural disasters puts more girls at risk as their families are pushed into the poverty that helps drive decisions to have girls married. Additionally, despite the government's pledge to end child marriage by 2041, Bangladesh's Prime Minister attempted to lower the age of marriage for girls from 18 to 16 years old.
Many girls interviewed by Human Rights Watch dropped out of secondary school because of fees and associated expenses and married at a young age. The government's nationwide female stipend program for primary and secondary education to further girls' education has resulted in the gross enrollment rate of girls at secondary level rising to 53 percent. However, even the smallest associated costs in secondary education, including exam fees and private coaching, mean children from many of the poor families cannot attend school and are vulnerable to early marriage.
Khadija, 35, has 4 children, and decided to take her 13-year-old daughter out of school: "I can't pay so she will have to quit." Her family lives in two rooms and survives through Khadija's husband doing agricultural work and any other work they can find. "She studied until class five, but now she needs to go to high school. The high school charges 2,500 taka [$32] in registration fees. I would also have to pay for private tutoring and books."
Indirect Costs and ExpensesThere are a lot of parents who would send their children to school if it weren't for these costs…there are a lot of people who can't even afford a 10 taka [$0.13] exam fee.
-Nongovernmental organization worker in Laxmipur, Bangladesh, October 2014
The removal of formal school fees significantly contributes to opening the school doors to the majority of children. However, the associated costs of education in primary and secondary schools result in direct financial barriers—such as transport costs and payments for books, uniforms, stationery and equipment, exam fees or parent teacher association fees, and personal assistants (for children with disabilities). Indirect costs and expenses tend to be much higher than school fees, and "constitute disincentives to the enjoyment of the right and may jeopardize its realization."
Although the impact of these additional financial barriers are often blamed on poverty, governments have to fulfill an "unequivocal requirement" to ensure education is "free of charge" and to take measures to eliminate financial barriers. Such measures should begin at the school level, where school officials and teachers collect additional fees and in many cases, punish or stop children from attending school who have not paid additional charges.
In Bangladesh, Morocco, and Tanzania, Human Rights Watch found that some indirect costs exclude poor children as a result of questionable practices by teachers. Abuses where teachers do not teach students compulsory subjects during class hours, but instead charge students and their families to teach these classes outside of school, remains widespread and impacts on children's equal access to the same standard of education.
Endah, a child domestic worker in Indonesia, explained to Human Rights Watch why she started work at age 15:
I couldn't continue school so I decided to get work. [My last year of school was] the first semester of the first year of junior high. I really wanted to continue studying, but I really didn't have the money. [The school fee] was 15,000 rupiah [$1.50] per month. But what I really couldn't afford was the 'building fee' and the uniform. It was 500,000 rupiah [$50] for the building fee and uniform…. Then each semester we had to buy books.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Human Rights Watch found that many children living and begging on the streets may be driven by their parents' or guardians' inability to pay school fees and other related costs of primary education. For example, Peter, in Lubumbashi, told us:
I had to leave school after I finished the third grade. My parents could no longer afford the fees, so I started coming to the streets to look for something to do. Life here on the streets is hard, there is never enough to eat, and I am hungry. I would like to return to school and continue my studies.
These additional—and often unofficial but obligatory—expenses lead to inconsistent attendance of children and eventual drop-outs, particularly of girls and children with disabilities, and particularly impact on secondary school-going students who often pay higher fees and expenses. In many cases, they become disincentives for poorer families who are no longer able to pay for their children's expenses.
Parents or guardians may consider forcing children into harmful labor practices or early marriage to offset the costs of their education. In Nepal, Ram Kumari Chaudhary, 16, studied to class six and married at age 14. She told Human Rights Watch: "My father stopped my schooling because he could not afford my fees, stationery, and uniform."[63]
RecommendationsThe teacher tells us to sit on the other side. If we sit with the others, she scolds us and asks us to sit separately… The teacher doesn't sit with us because she says 'we're dirty.' The other children also call us dirty everyday so sometimes we get angry and hit them.
—Pankaj (pseudonym), a child belonging to the Ghasiya tribal community, Uttar Pradesh, India, April 2013
Me and my cousin are the only two Syrians in the class. The rest of the students have 'ganged up' on us and are saying we speak a lot, that we misbehave. The teacher sent us to the back of the class. All teachers treat me badly because I'm Syrian. When one of the teachers asks a Jordanian girl and she answers the question then the teacher says 'Bravo!' When I answer, I get nothing. Once, going up the stairs with a Jordanian girl, I was told off and asked to go back to the line and wait until everybody went off.
—Mariam (pseudonym), 11, Al-Zarqa, Jordan, October 2015
Globally branded as children who have been "left behind" or "the hardest to reach," many children have been consistently denied an education because of pervasive discriminatory beliefs or practices. On every continent, children suffer direct and indirect discrimination based on their gender, race, ethnicity, disability, religion, health status, or sexual orientation—or a combination of all—on a daily basis. Many of these children first face the harsh realities of the outside world when they reach school where looking, acting, or feeling different often means ridicule, harassment, and at times, abuse at the hands of classmates, teachers, and others in schools.
According to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights—an independent body of experts overseeing the human rights treaty applicable to this set of rights, including education—discrimination constitutes "any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference or other differential treatment that is directly or indirectly based on the prohibited grounds of discriminationand which has the intention or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise [of rights] on an equal footing."
UNESCO's Convention against Discrimination in Education—ratified by over 100 countries—also provides strong obligations on governments to eliminate any form of discrimination, whether in law, policy, or practice, which could affect the realization of the right to education. Under the Convention, states must "ensure that the standards of education are equivalent in all public educational institutions of the same level, and that the conditions relating to the quality of the education provided are also equivalent."
In addition to removing any forms of direct discrimination against students, governments should also ensure indirect discrimination does not occur as a result of laws, policies, or practices which may have the effect of disproportionately impacting on the right to education of children who require further accommodation, or whose circumstances may not be the same as those of the majority school population. This is particularly the case with children with disabilities globally, or children belonging to minorities, such as the Roma, who may be placed in segregated or specialized schools in countries like the Czech Republic or Bosnia and Herzegovina, or many Kurdish children who are blocked from learning in their mother tongue in Turkey.
Despite the numerous specific commitments to ensure that boys and girls have an equal right to education, adopted or endorsed by governments through special global initiatives, girls continue to face unique gender-specific barriers. These will be outlined in a separate section.
Children Belonging to Ethnic, Religious or Language MinoritiesThe lack of acknowledgment of or dedicated action to remove direct or indirect forms of discrimination experienced by particular groups of children from minority groups continues to affect access to education for millions of children.
Some government continue to enforce discriminatory policies within their education systems. These policies often relate to the prohibition of ethnic or cultural practices or languages, or may lead to the separation of children into different education systems, according to their ethnicity, race, or belief.
In a number of cases, persistent discrimination in schools—by school officials or teachers—may lead to drop-outs or lower school performance. In Nepal, for example, Human Rights Watch found that teachers adhere to social or cultural traditions which perpetuate discrimination in classrooms. Sunita married a classmate of a different caste at the age of 15. They decided to elope prompted by the harassment they faced in school. "The teachers would call me out of class and say, 'He's lower caste—you shouldn't talk with him or be seen with him,'" Sunita said. "They used to beat me with sticks and pull me out of morning assembly and beat me in front of my friends. They said, 'We're doing it for her own good because she's going around with a lower class boy.'"
In 2001, Human Rights Watch found that in Israel, Palestinian Arab and Bedouin children, as well as Palestinian children in East Jerusalem, faced discriminatory access to quality education relative to Jewish Israeli children. Even today, schools predominantly catering to Palestinian Arab and Bedouin children receive less funding, and are often overcrowded, understaffed, and sometimes unavailable. Palestinian children in East Jerusalem suffer through grave shortage of classrooms and adequate school infrastructure, and are subjected to security barriers and checkpoints. In 2011, Israel's Supreme Court ruled that a shortage of quality constituted a violation of the constitutional right to education for students in East Jerusalem.
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In India, the government adopted the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act in 2009. The Act guarantees free and compulsory education to all children aged 6 to 14, and makes it mandatory for government schools to provide free books and uniforms in government schools, while private schools are required to provide at least 25 percent free seats for those from weaker sections and disadvantaged groups.
However, discrimination against children from economically and socially marginalized communities, such as the so-called lower castes, tribal groups, and Muslims, by school authorities plays a significant part in children's irregular attendance and low retention rates. Human Rights Watch research shows how teachers ask Dalit (formerly known as "untouchables") children to sit separately in classrooms, or to wait for their free school lunches only after all the other students have had theirs. Teachers often continue to make insulting remarks about Muslim and tribal students, and Human Rights Watch found that village authorities would make efforts to encourage parents to send their girls to school when they were kept away by their families.
Children with DisabilitiesWe tried to put him in a [mainstream] school but they said they couldn't put him in that school because he has disabilities. The school said that he was naughty. Because of Down syndrome he isn't like other children so they [said they] can't teach him.
—Thandi, mother of an 8-year-old boy with Down Syndrome, South Africa, November 2014
Subjects such as physics and chemistry were missing. When we asked to study more things, the staff members cited our diagnosis: profound mental retardation. We were not thinking about our diagnosis. We just wanted to learn something new.
—Anton K. (pseudonym), 21, diagnosed with 'Profound Mental Retardation', Russia, June 2013
In many countries, children with disabilities continue to be discriminated against and "disproportionately" denied their right to education compared with children without disabilities.
Human Rights Watch research indicates that many governments continue to have a strong focus on specialized, separate education for children with disabilities, with limited meaningful inclusion in mainstream schools. This has often led to significant tension on what type of education is best for children with very different types of disabilities.
Inclusive education focuses on promoting accessibility, identifying and removing barriers to learning, and changing practices and attitudes in mainstream schools to accommodate the diverse learning needs of individual students. Despite a global push to ensure schools are "universally designed"—or conform to inclusive standards of building which take into account mobility, access, and other requirements—classrooms, toilets, and school buildings remain inaccessible for children with disabilities.
Rather than investing in more effective and cost-efficient changes to promote inclusive education in existing schools, Human Rights Watch has found that governments seeking to increase enrollment rates for children with disabilities focus on building costly special schools which cater to smaller numbers of children with disabilities, often grouping children by types of disabilities. In Lebanon, for example, where there is limited inclusion of children with disabilities in education and many remain out of school, the government announced plans to build 60 new specialized schools for children with learning disabilities in 2016.
Moreover, governments do not always implement "reasonable accommodation"—a key legal requirement under the CRPD to ensure schools accommodate children's needs and do not discriminate against them—in ways that facilitate children's accessibility or inclusion. The burden is often on children and families to adapt to whatever service or type of education is available, or to drop out of school where schools do not provide additional services.
In Nepal, children with disabilities represent a substantial group of the primary school-aged children who remain out of school. An estimated 85 percent of all out-of-school children in Nepal have disabilities. The Nepalese government has adopted an inclusive education policy, but it has not done enough to ensure that children with disabilities attend school. The enrollment of children with disabilities in primary and secondary education continued to decline in 2014, despite government efforts which increased school scholarships for children with disabilities, developed a special curriculum for children with intellectual disabilities, and established a team tasked with developing a new national inclusive education policy.
According to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), "Inclusive education systems are designed to provide for a diverse constituency of students."
In dealing with specific individual needs of students, "an inclusive system would respond by reviewing its practice to determine whether the gaps might be addressed systemically or through a reasonable accommodation measure. A reasonable accommodation fund should be set up to address the gaps."
Even when children with disabilities are in school, their education is often of poor quality. In China, Nepal, India, Russia, and South Africa, Human Rights Watch found that children with disabilities are affected by their teachers' lack of knowledge, training, skills and motivation; and an absence of individualized planning and learning. In many cases, pchildren with disabilities felt th
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