Privatisation, Discrimination and the Right to Education

A 2015 report on Privatisation, Discrimination and the Right to Education (PDF) observes:

• The State is gradually releasing itself from its obligation to provide quality public education for all, as it is increasingly relying on private actors to provide education. Investment in education is nowhere near internationally agreed-upon norms.
• The growing private sector in education has not been matched by appropriate regulatory, supervision and monitoring frameworks, resulting in many rights-issues in private schools.
• Parents are often forced to resort to private schools because the public education system is largely failing, while private schools are often perceived to be of better quality. In that sense, the extent of ‘free choice’ exercised is debatable.
• The fees attached to privately provided education are bound to result in discrimination by keeping more children out of school, particularly those from low-income households.
• Moreover, expanding privatisation is very unlikely to ensure the enrolment of out-of-school children and may increase school dropout rates because of tuition and other fees.
• Thus, the 'sad reality' is that parents with higher incomes can ensure a better education for their children, while the poorest children are forced to attend either failing public schools in marginalised areas or the lowest quality private schools.

This could have been a report from India. But this report is from Uganda. The issues afflicting education in developing countries are distressingly similar. This report, by Kampala-based Initiative for Social and Economic Rights (ISER), sets out the international human rights framework in which privatisation of education must be seen. Indeed, ISER's reports consistently refer to the constitutional and international obligations that the country has, while balancing the realities of a market economy.

As one of the authors of the report, Salima Namusobya, notes in a recent opinion piece, 'The challenge of public versus private schools in Uganda':

Uganda and other developing countries should work towards sustainable, inclusive, quality education for all, while allowing for a well-regulated private education sector that supplements — but does not supplant — the public system, as advised by the July 2016 United Nations Human Rights Council resolution.