Right to Education Index gives a helping hand to education worldwide
The challenges and potential in driving progress towards achieving the right to education for all are highlighted in the recently released Right to Education Index, which brought together partners in five countries.
The Right to Education Index (RTEI) was piloted with partners in five countries – Chile, Nigeria, the Philippines, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe – and their findings are also included in the report.
Key findings include:
· Chile: Lack of protection of the right to education in the Constitution and lack of a national education plan towards free, universal education.
· Nigeria: Unsafe learning environments and a lack of qualified teachers, with a primary school pupil-trained teacher ratio of 70:1.
· The Philippines: Underpaid and overburdened teachers, with an entry level salary lower than that of a military cadet and a primary school classroom-pupil ratio of 1:75.
· Tanzania: A female marriage age of 15 as per the Marriage Act of 1971. In addition, corporal punishment is not prohibited; rather, it is institutionalised through the Corporal Punishment Act of 1979 and the Government Guidelines of 2000.
· Zimbabwe: No national education plan for free primary education but rather one that enables school fees as in the Education Act.
Teacher training
Teachers are among the transversal themes the report focuses on, with the impact of teacher training on a country’s pupil-teacher ratio revealed. Of the RTEI pilot countries, Tanzania and Chile prove to have the largest portion of their teacher workforce adequately trained, with 99 percent and 95 percent respectively. However, while Chile is achieving a ratio of 20 pupils per trained primary school teacher, Tanzania is struggling with 44 pupils per trained teacher.
The effect of teacher training on pupil-teacher ratios is most prominent in Nigeria. It reports a general pupil-teacher ratio of 42:1 in primary schools, but this balloons to a pupil-trained teacher ratio of 70:1 because 40 per cent of primary school teachers are not trained.
Public/private enrolment
The Private Education transversal theme assesses, among other things, relative gross enrolment patterns in public and private schools. This analysis is important to ensure that governments do not abdicate their responsibility at various levels of education.
The report’s charts illustrate gross enrolment rates at different levels of education as well as the share of students in public or private schools, revealing trends in private school enrolment. In Chile, for example, over 50 percent of students are enrolled in private schools at all levels of education. Tanzania and the Philippines have more publicly provided education systems, although private school enrolment increases at higher levels of education in the Philippines. In Zimbabwe, most students (nearly 90 percent) begin their education in private schools but enrol in public schools when transitioning to secondary (with 77 percent enrolled in government secondary schools).
Background to RTEI
The RTEI was piloted in 2015 by RESULTS Educational Fund, a non-profit grassroots advocacy organisation creating long-term solutions to poverty by supporting policies and programmes addressing its root causes.
It is a global accountability initiative that aims to ensure that all people, no matter where they live, enjoy their right to a quality education. This initiative further aims to make civil society, governments, and the international community monitor commitments made around the right to education. It is also a diagnostic tool that reveals obstacles preventing the realisation of the right to education in a country and potential remedies to them.
It reveals key areas in need of improvement, offers country to country comparisons, and tracks progress over time. Ultimately, RTEI seeks to:
• Strengthen the expertise and capacity of civil society and education advocates
• Increase public and political support for realising the right to education
• Hold governments and institutions accountable for their commitments to the right to education
• Uphold the right to education for every child and adult everywhere
RESULTS Educational Fund will be conducting a 15 country first official round of RTEI in 2016. And, in 2017, it will also seek to support a subset of partners to carry forward in-country advocacy strategies based on this year’s findings.
The RTEI can be downloaded here
