The Human Rights Law Centre and the Centre for International Education Research are delighted to invite you to an event on 'Privatisation, Education and Human Rights' on 6 February from 1-2pm in B55, Lw and Social Sciences building.
The growing global phenomenon of privatisation has had a particularly wide-ranging impact in the area of education. With the concept of the 'small state' as a key element of the predominant neoliberal economic paradigm, international financial institutions, development aid donors and many states themselves have come to regard private actors as central to the delivery of education. This is despite growing evidence of the negative effect of private sector involvement in terms of exacerbating inequalities in access and quality of education in many instances, as well as limited evidence for the supposed 'efficiencies' resulting from such involvement. This event engages with the tensions between neoliberal development orthodoxy and a rights-based approach, with a particular focus on the recently adopted Abidjan Guiding Principles on the human rights obligations of States to provide public education and to regulate private involvement in education.
The event will be chaired by Annamaria LaChimia, Professor of Law and Development, and feature inputs from:
Delphine is a human rights lawyer with more than 10 years experience in the field of the right to education. She joined RTE in 2012 as legal and communication officer and has led the organisation since 2014. She previously worked at UNESCO for the Right to Education Programme for four years. She has also worked with a number of NGOs in Europe and Africa, including: Amnesty International, Save the Children and Defence for Children International. She holds a Master's in Human Rights from the University of Strasbourg.
David Archer, Head of Programme Development, ActionAid
David Archer is Head of Participation and Public Services with ActionAid, having been Head of Education for many years. He now leads ActionAid’s work on civic participation, tax justice and gender responsive public services. In the 1980s David worked on literacy programmes across Latin America inspired by Brazilian educator Paulo Freire ("Literacy and Power: the Latin American Battleground” Earthscan 1990). Joining ActionAid in 1990 he developed the Reflect approach to adult literacy and social change, an approach now used in over 100 countries by 500 organisations and which has won 5 UN International Prizes since 2003.
David is recognised as a leading civil society expert on global education issues. He is a co-founder and until recently a board member of the Global Campaign for Education. He managed the £15million Commonwealth Education Fund from 2002-2009, reporting to the Governor of the Bank of England. He is now the Chair of the Board of the Right to Education Initiative (hosting the definitive website). He served two terms as an elected civil society representative on the board of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE - the $2 billion global fund) and now chairs the GPE Strategy and Impact Committee. He is also a trustee of the UK Forum on International Education and Training.
David has written extensively on education notably on the financing of education, on understanding a human-rights based approach, on transforming public systems, on HIV and education, and on gender responsive education.
Simon McGrath, UNESCO Chair in International Education and Development, University of Nottingham
Simon McGrath is the Director of the University of Nottingham Centre for International Education Research . Previously he was Director of the Human Resources Development Research Programme of the South African Human Sciences Research Council and remains a research associate of the HSRC. He is an internationally recognised expert on education- development links, especially at the post-school level.
Aoife Nolan, Professor of International Human Rights Law, University of Nottingham
Aoife Nolan is Co-Director of the University of Nottingham Human Rights Law Centre. She was one of the drafters of the Abidjan Guiding Principles on the human rights obligations of States to provide public education and to regulate private involvement in education.