18 februari 2014 | GPE | Many international organizations commit themselves to promoting the right to education, but what does that really mean? Check out the renewed Right to Education website.
One person who provided a definitive answer was the late Katarina Tomasevski, the first United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education. During her tenure she observed that there was no public website or online resource devoted solely to the right to education. So she collected international documents and instruments guaranteeing the right to education and started the Right to Education project and its website www.right-to-education.org.
A critical human rights tool
In 2007, suffering from a terminal illness, Katarina approached ActionAid to take over the website she had started and to run it in coordination with Amnesty International and the Global Campaign for Education (subsequently joined also by Human Rights Watch and Save the Children). The site was significantly expanded and relaunched in 2008 with the ambition to act as a bridge between the human rights community and education campaigners, linking legal action and social mobilization. The revamped site included a country database, critical information about the most excluded and vulnerable groups and sections on campaigning and education financing. Practical guidelines were included around identifying and taking action on violations. The huge ambition of the site made it an invaluable reference point – but also meant it was sometimes difficult to navigate.
A new look and feel
This week sees the launch of the third incarnation of this remarkable website. The Right to Education website has been reconceived and redesigned, based on feedback from users around the world. Its core function as the definitive global resource on the right to education remains unchanged but it has been transformed to be more user-friendly, recalibrated to work on mobile phones and tablets, updated to interface with social media and refreshed with modern branding and style
The right to education is being violated with impunity or is under threat in many places. Hence, it has never been more important to have a resource that is easy to use, clarifying what the right to education entails and sharing how diverse partners, in the Global Partnership for Education and beyond, can work together to ensure that all dimensions of the right are respected, protected and fulfilled.
A critical help for human rights activists
Over 250,000 people visited the website in 2013, coming from all regions of the world and accessing the site in English, French, Spanish and Arabic. The users are human rights lawyers, NGO workers, government officials, donors, academics, students, campaigners and activists. The new site has been designed to help each group find what they need more easily. Key information is instantly available whilst detailed information can be easily accessed through links, resources and downloadable documents.
What the website offers
At its core the website helps users to understand education from a human rights perspective. The website:
- lists diverse international instruments that guarantee the right to education,
- offers guidance to look at the implementation of the right to education at national level,
- focuses on important right to education issues and
- shares tools that help people to take action to promote, monitor and litigate the right to education.
Check out news stories and blog posts discussing right to education issues and success stories showing how civil society has advanced the right to education. Our first success story is from South Africa where Section27 held the State accountable for not providing textbooks in poor rural area of the country. Join the multilingual online discussion forum run with the Global Campaign for Education and don’t forget to subscribe to the Right to Education Project e-Bulletin and get regular updates in your inbox
Whilst initially relaunched in English, refreshed versions in French, Spanish and Arabic will follow soon.
Let us know what you think
This unique resource aims to be responsive to the needs and interests of its users so please visit the site and give your feedback. Let us know if you identify any gaps or want more focus on particular issues. Share your own experiences of rights-based work, of innovative legal action or new developments in your country that have significant implications for the right to education.
I believe that this is a timely relaunch as we work towards the replenishment of the Global Partnership for Education and the framing of post-2015 education goals. All GPE partners – from Ministries of Education to donors, from civil society to the private sector – will find it to be a valuable reference point that explains all the dimensions of the right to education. Working together in this unique partnership, I believe we can make significant contribution to promoting and protecting the right to education.