RES/38/9 The right to education: follow-up to Human Rights Council resolution 8/4

GE.18-11833(E)

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Human Rights Council Thirty-eighth session

18 June–6 July 2018

Agenda item 3

Resolution adopted by the Human Rights Council on 5 July 2018

38/9. The right to education: follow-up to Human Rights Council

resolution 8/4

The Human Rights Council,

Guided by the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations,

Reaffirming the human right of everyone to education, which is enshrined in, inter

alia, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic,

Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on

the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the International

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the International

Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their

Families, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Convention

against Discrimination in Education of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and

Cultural Organization, and other relevant international instruments,

Reaffirming also its resolution 8/4 of 18 June 2008, and recalling all other Human

Rights Council resolutions on the right to education, the most recent of which is resolution

35/2 of 22 June 2017, and the resolutions adopted by the Commission on Human Rights on

the subject,

Bearing in mind the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Education and

Training and the World Programme for Human Rights Education, which both underline the

importance of human rights education as an integral part of the right to education,

Welcoming the progress made in achieving the Education for All goals and the

related Sustainable Development Goals, including Goal 4 on ensuring inclusive and

equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all, while

recognizing the need to accelerate efforts to complete the unfinished agenda of the

Millennium Development Goals,

Recalling the Incheon Declaration: Education 2030: Towards inclusive and equitable

quality education and lifelong learning for all, adopted at the World Education Forum 2015,

held in Incheon, Republic of Korea, which aims to mobilize all countries and partners and

provide guidance on achieving the effective implementation of Sustainable Development

Goal 4 and meeting the related targets on education for all, including internally displaced

persons and refugees,

United Nations A/HRC/RES/38/9

Reiterating the commitments to strengthen the means of implementation, including

Goal 17 of the Sustainable Development Goals and the commitments under each Goal, and

the actions outlined in the Addis Ababa Action Agenda of the Third International

Conference on Financing for Development for ensuring the full realization of the

Sustainable Development Goals,

Reiterating also the importance of early childhood development as a valuable

foundation of the entire basic education system,

Strongly condemning the recurring attacks on students, teachers, schools and

universities, which impair the realization of the right to education and cause severe and

long-lasting harm to individuals and societies,

Recognizing the negative impact of climate change, natural disasters, conflict and

crisis on the full realization of the right to education, the fact that a large proportion of the

world’s out-of-school population lives in conflict-affected areas, and that crises, violence

and attacks on and the military use of educational institutions, natural disasters and

pandemics continue to disrupt education and development globally, as noted in the Incheon

Declaration,

Recognizing also that girls are disproportionately represented among out-of-school

children and that women are disproportionately represented among illiterate adults owing

to, inter alia, discrimination based on race, colour, language, religion, political or other

opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status, early marriage or

pregnancy, the lack of appropriate sanitary facilities, gender stereotypes, patriarchal social

norms, and on economic grounds when education is not free,

Reiterating the contribution that access to new information and communications

technology, including the Internet, plays in facilitating the realization of the right to

education and in promoting inclusive quality education,

Welcoming the steps taken to implement the right to education, such as the

enactment of appropriate legislation, adjudication by national courts, the development of

national indicators, the development by experts of guiding principles and tools for States,

and ensuring justiciability of this right, and aware of the role that communications

procedures can play in promoting the justiciability of the right to education,

1. Calls upon all States to take all measures to implement Human Rights

Council resolutions on the right to education with a view to ensuring the full realization of

this right for all;

2. Urges all States to give full effect to the right to education by, inter alia,

complying with their obligations to respect, protect and fulfil the right to education by all

appropriate means, including by taking measures such as:

(a) Reviewing national education governance systems, which include the laws,

policies, institutions, administrative procedures and practices, monitoring and

accountability mechanisms, and judicial procedures relating to the right to education, in

accordance with their obligations under international human rights law and remaining

consistent with the commitments undertaken by all States in the Sustainable Development

Goals;

(b) Applying the principles of transparency, accountability and non-

discrimination in national and local education governance and management structures, inter

alia, by ensuring that governance structures and practices are accessible to the public and

are verifiable;

(c) Promoting inclusive participation in education governance mechanisms and

procedures, inter alia, by facilitating the inclusion in and engagement of teachers, parents

and local authorities, students and other stakeholders in the education governance system;

(d) Promoting human rights training for all actors and stakeholders in education

governance systems, addressing national education and training programmes, and ensuring

that the components and processes of education governance and management, including

curricula, methods and training, are undeniably conducive to strengthening learning about

human rights;

(e) Developing national monitoring and evaluation systems to inform education

policies and to assess whether education systems are meeting national objectives, human

rights obligations and the Sustainable Development Goals, inter alia, by collecting detailed

and disaggregated data in order to evaluate whether the target populations, including girls

and women, and members of groups in vulnerable situations, are adequately included, and

how they are performing;

3. Also urges all States to expand educational opportunities for all without

discrimination, including by implementing special programmes to address inequalities,

including barriers to accessibility and discrimination against women and girls in education,

recognizing the significant importance of investment in public education, to the maximum

of available resources; to increase and improve domestic and external financing for

education, as affirmed in the Incheon Declaration: Education 2030: Towards inclusive and

equitable quality education and lifelong learning for all and the Education 2030 Framework

for Action; to ensure that education policies and measures are consistent with human rights

standards and principles, including those laid down in the Universal Declaration of Human

Rights and relevant international human rights instruments; and to strengthen engagement

with all relevant stakeholders, including communities, local actors and civil society, to

contribute to education as a public good;

4. Further urges all States to regulate and monitor education providers and to

hold accountable those whose practices have a negative impact on the enjoyment of the

right to education, and to support research and awareness-raising activities to better

understand the wide-ranging impact of the commercialization of education on the

enjoyment of the right to education;

5. Urges States to put in place a regulatory framework to ensure the regulation

of all education providers, including those operating independently or in partnership with

States, guided by international human rights law and principles, that establishes, at the

appropriate level, inter alia, minimum norms and standards for the creation and operation of

educational services, addresses any negative impact of the commercialization of education

and strengthens access to appropriate remedies and reparation for victims of violations of

the right to education;

6. Calls upon States to promote holistic technical vocational education and

training, and work-based learning in all its forms, including in-service training,

apprenticeship and internships, by implementing appropriate policies and programmes as a

means of ensuring the realization of the right to education;

7. Welcomes:

(a) The work of the Special Rapporteur on the right to education, and takes note

of her latest report, on governance and the right to education;1

(b) The work of the treaty bodies and the special procedures of the Human

Rights Council in the promotion of the right to education, as well as the work undertaken

by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in the

promotion of the right to education at the country, regional and headquarters levels;

(c) The contribution of the United Nations Children’s Fund, the United Nations

Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the lead agency on Sustainable

Development Goal 4, and other relevant bodies towards attaining the goals of the Education

for All agenda and the education-related Sustainable Development Goals;

8. Calls upon States to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable

Development, including Sustainable Development Goal 4, in order to ensure inclusive and

equitable quality education and to promote lifelong learning opportunities for all;

1 A/HRC/38/32.

9. Reaffirms the obligations and commitments to take steps, individually and

through international assistance and cooperation, especially economic and technical steps,

to the maximum of available resources, with a view to achieving progressively the full

realization of the right to education by all appropriate means, including in particular the

adoption of legislative measures;

10. Calls upon States to take all necessary measures, including sufficient

budgetary allocations, to ensure accessible, inclusive, equitable and non-discriminatory

quality education and to promote learning opportunities for all, paying particular attention

to girls, marginalized children, older persons, persons with disabilities and all vulnerable

and marginalized groups, including those affected by humanitarian emergencies and

conflict situations;

11. Also calls upon States to continue to make efforts to strengthen the protection

of preschools, schools and universities against attacks, including by taking measures to

deter the military use of schools, and encourages efforts to provide safe, inclusive and

enabling learning environments and quality education for all within an appropriate time

frame, including all levels of education in the context of humanitarian emergencies and

conflict situations;

12. Stresses the importance of international cooperation, including the exchange

of good practices, and of technical cooperation, capacity-building, financial assistance and

technology transfer on mutually agreed terms in facilitating the realization of the right to

education, including through the strategic and adapted use of information and

communications technology;

13. Encourages all States to measure progress in the realization of the right to

education, such as by developing national indicators as an important tool for the realization

of the right to education and for policy formulation, impact assessment and transparency;

14. Calls upon States to accelerate efforts to eliminate gender-based

discrimination and all forms of violence, including sexual harassment, school-related sexual

and gender-based violence, and bullying of children, in schools and other educational

settings, and to realize gender equality and the right to education for all;

15. Encourages States to consider justiciability when determining the best way to

give domestic legal effect to the right to education;

16. Acknowledges the role that communications procedures can play to promote

the justiciability of the right to education, and in this regard calls upon all States that have

not yet signed and ratified the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on

Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to consider doing so as a matter of priority;

17. Encourages the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the

treaty bodies, the special procedures of the Human Rights Council and other relevant

United Nations bodies and mechanisms, specialized agencies, funds and programmes,

within their respective mandates, to continue their efforts to promote the full realization of

the right to education worldwide and to enhance their cooperation in this regard, including

by enhancing technical assistance to Governments;

18. Commends the contribution of national human rights institutions, civil

society, including non-governmental organizations, and parliamentarians to the realization

of the right to education, including through cooperation with the Special Rapporteur;

19. Decides to remain seized of the matter.

37th meeting

5 July 2018

[Adopted without a vote.]