Synthesizing the Research to Foster Implementation of the Guiding Principles

• In Event: Designing and Implementing the Human Rights Guiding Principles on Obligations of States Regarding Private Actors in Education (Session 2）

Proposal

This paper serves as a capstone for the eight background papers commissioned in the Guiding Principles project. It provides a synthesis of the main findings from each of the papers, organized by their legal or educational focus, their theoretical implications, and their empirical findings. It concludes with considerations of how the research can contribute to the implementation process at the community and policy levels.

The background papers fall into two main categories: law and education. Beginning from a legal perspective, the first paper presents the history and process of developing guiding principles, providing key lessons for the process. Three additional papers address key tensions within the human rights law around education. One discusses the right to education, specifically regarding the question of the role of “public” education within international law. Another, addressed on this panel, deals with the distinction between the right of the child to receive education from the state and the right of the parent to select the nature of that education. A fourth paper identifies the conditions under which funding of private education should be permitted, specifically as the state adheres to its duty not to discriminate Key findings from these papers will be highlighted and discussed within the broader context of the international legal rights to education and their inherent tensions.

The second type of papers focuses on the field of education itself. The first two papers analyze the impact of choice and different market-based mechanisms for education delivery. The cross-national analyses identify key features of approaches, especially from different types of private actors, and evaluate the empirical basis for their success or lack thereof. They also specifically analyze the equity dimensions of these approaches. Two additional papers delve into specific contexts – East Africa (discussed on the panel) and Francophone countries – that have seen an influx in the role of private actors. These two examples provide a closer look at the impact of private actors on public education delivery at the national and subnational level, providing key evidence from the locations where the Guiding Principles are likely to play a role moving forward.
The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the GPs at two levels: communities and policy. At the community level, research on the relationships between communities, practioners, and researchers provides best practices for how stakeholders can engage complex information (such as the GPs) and distill it for broader audiences. A similar, though distinct, translation process must occur for policy-makers to effectively engage the principles. This paper outlines the key points for each different audience, applying prior approaches to both community and policy audiences within the context of both the Guiding Principles themselves and the background research that serves as the analytical foundation for the process.

Author

• Frank M. Adamson, California State University, Sacramento