What do the Abidjan Principles tell us about the education landscape in Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda?

• In Event: The Abidjan Principles on the right to education: A practical tool to address global challenges to the provision of quality education for all to ensure future peaceful societies and life on earth

Proposal

In early 2019, ActionAid and the Centre for Education & International Development at UCL with input from the Right to Education Initiative and the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, collaborated to conduct a multi-country study using the Abidjan Principles to assess the impact of private provision on the right to education. The Abidjan Principles unpack and compile existing provisions in international human rights law and provide guidance on how to put them into practice in the context of the rapid expansion of private sector involvement in education.

The research focused on Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda. It looks at aspects of segregation and discrimination which may be associated with private provision and how Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) operate in each country, particularly regarding equality in a range of settings which bear on the delivery of education – schools, households, communities and countries. The research takes into account obligations to protect and advance rights and consider equality. It looks at how the Abidjan Principles can guide analysis, research, monitoring as well as advocacy and campaign interventions.
On the basis of document reviews and interviews conducted for these studies, the analysis concludes these 7 countries are not fully meeting their obligations to provide free, quality public education, partly due to the underfunding of the education sector in these countries. The private sector is consequently on the increase, entrenching social inequalities, leading to stratification and huge disparities in education opportunities.
These countries have constitutional commitments, have enacted laws and policies to provide free and compulsory education, however, this has come to be interpreted as having been met by any form of schooling being provided, neglecting the states’ obligations to provide a public education system that supports 9 years of free quality schooling for all, without discrimination, segregation or demands on parents to pay any fees.
Using the Abidjan Principles as a tool for analysis reveals that these conditions are not in place and obligations are not fully met in any of the countries studied. In all countries there has been a largely unregulated growth of the private sector. This is particularly marked in some countries, at primary school level. Enrolments in private primary schools comprise 27.8% of all primary level enrolments in Ghana,17.8% in Kenya,19.6% in Uganda and 12.6% in Nigeria. At secondary level enrolments in private establishments constitute 19% of school enrolments in Nigeria, 18.5 % of enrolments in Tanzania and 16 % of enrolments Ghana. The result is a stratification of the education system where private schools contribute to entrenching social inequalities. Using the Abidjan Principles reveals some of these assumptions about the design of the education system, which do not question the effects of the private sector, on states’ obligations to meet human rights commitments.

Authors

• Maria Ron Balsera, ActionAid

• Asmara Figue, ActionAid

• Elaine Unterhalter, Institute of Education, University College London