The Right to Education

A/HRC/RES/59/9View PDF

Who created this mandate?

A document of the Human Rights Council, under agenda item 3Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development, published in 2025.

What other versions does this mandate have?

11 versions · 1980–2025

2025A/HRC/RES/59/9The right to educationLatestCompare with previous version
2023A/HRC/RES/53/7The right to educationCompare with previous version
2021A/HRC/RES/47/6The right to educationCompare with previous version
2020A/HRC/RES/44/3The right to educationCompare with previous version
2016A/HRC/RES/32/22The right to educationCompare with previous version

Versions are identified automatically by matching titles within the same organ (~97% accuracy on a manual audit).

Who cites this mandate in the budget?

1 entity

Extracted automatically from each entity’s budget submission.

What subjects does this mandate have?

6 topics

Anti-Discrimination Measures Educational Policy Equality Human Rights in Armed Conflicts Information Technology Right to Education

What does this mandate say?

31 operative paragraphs

Urges all States to give full effect to the right to education for all, including children, in all contexts, including in humanitarian emergencies and post-disaster phases, as well as in conflict situations and situations of occupation, by, inter alia, complying with their obligations to respect, protect and fulfil the right to education, and recognizing the right of every individual to be safe in education, understood as the right to be protected from any violation of their integrity, and to expand quality educational opportunities for all, by all appropriate means and without discrimination of any kind, including by:

Implementing targeted programmes to address inequalities and their root causes, including barriers to accessibility, in particular for persons with disabilities, and discrimination against women and girls in education;

Recognizing the significant importance of investment in free, inclusive and equitable quality public education, at all levels, and doing so to the maximum of available resources;

Increasing and improving financing for education, including in humanitarian emergencies and conflict situations;

Ensuring that education policies and measures are consistent with human rights obligations, including those laid down in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and relevant international human rights instruments;

Strengthening engagement with all relevant stakeholders, including communities, children and youth, learners, educators, school leaders, parents and/or legal guardians, local actors and civil society, to contribute to education as a public good;

Calls upon all States to take all measures to implement the Human Rights Council resolutions on the right to education with a view to ensuring the full realization of this right for all;

Calls upon States to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including Sustainable Development Goal 4, in accordance with human rights laws and standards, in order to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and to promote lifelong learning opportunities for all, and encourages States to secure ambitious outcomes at the Second World Summit for Social Development, to be held from 4 to 6 November 2025, in Doha, with regard to the critical role of education in driving social progress;

Encourages States to give domestic legal effect to the right to education, including by ensuring its justiciability, and urges States to strengthen their legal frameworks, to adopt adequate policies and programmes and to allocate sufficient resources, either individually or through international assistance and cooperation, to the full realization of the right to education;

Acknowledges the role that communications procedures can play to promote the justiciability of the right to education, and in this regard calls upon all States that have not yet signed and ratified the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a communications procedure to consider doing so as a matter of priority;

Calls upon States to promote holistic technical vocational education and training, and work-based learning in all its forms for all, including in-service training, internships and apprenticeships, in line with International Labour Organization Quality Apprenticeships Recommendation 2023 (No. 208), as well as lifelong learning and further education and training, by implementing appropriate policies and programmes as a means of ensuring the realization of the right to education;

Also calls upon States to take all measures necessary, including by making education a priority in their national budgets by granting sufficient budgetary allocations to education, to finance educational investment and to ensure accessible, inclusive, equitable and non-discriminatory quality education to all at all levels by, inter alia, removing all financial barriers, such as direct and indirect costs; to provide sufficient physical and mental healthcare and services in educational institutions and to address the root causes of the increasing mental health needs of children and young persons; and to promote lifelong learning opportunities for all, paying particular attention to women and girls, children in the most vulnerable and marginalized situations, older persons, persons with disabilities, persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities, Indigenous Peoples and all persons in vulnerable and marginalized situations, including those affected by humanitarian emergencies and conflict situations;

Further calls upon States to accelerate efforts to prevent attacks on education during armed conflict, to end impunity for such attacks, to ensure accountability, to provide access to justice and effective remedies for victims and to continue to strengthen the protection of preschools, schools, universities and other education institutions against attacks and threats of attack, making them free from all forms of violence, fully implementing Security Council resolution 2601 (2021) of 29 October 2021, including by taking measures to criminalize and deter the military use of schools and universities, such as by implementing the Safe Schools Declaration – or, in the case of States that have not yet endorsed it, to consider doing so – and implementing the Guidelines for Protecting Schools and Universities from Military Use during Armed Conflict, and encourages efforts to provide safe, non-violent, inclusive, effective and enabling learning environments and quality education for all within an appropriate time frame, including all levels of education in the context of humanitarian emergencies and conflict situations;

Encourages all States to develop and strengthen emergency education preparedness, anticipation and responsiveness, within their respective education systems, grounded on human rights, and to train educational planners at all levels;

Calls upon States to accelerate efforts to eliminate gender-based discrimination, harmful practices such as female genital mutilation and child, early and forced marriage, and all forms of violence, abuse and harassment, including sexual harassment, the sale and sexual exploitation and abuse of children, school-related sexual and gender-based violence, and bullying in schools and other educational settings, both online and offline, in particular against those persons who are most vulnerable, discriminated against and marginalized, and to guarantee gender equality and the right to education for all;

Urges States to take all measures necessary to eliminate gender bias and gender stereotypes in education at all levels, including through human rights education, the facilitation of learning environments that take into account a gender perspective and the promotion of equal opportunities in all fields of study, and calls upon States to ensure that women and girls are able to diversify their educational and occupational choices, including in emerging fields, in science, technology, engineering, arts, mathematics and information and communications technology;

Urges all States to regulate and monitor all education providers, public and private, including those operating independently or in partnership with States, by, inter alia, putting in place adequate mechanisms to hold accountable those whose practices have a negative impact on the enjoyment of the right to education, to address the negative impact of the commercialization of education, to ensure that artificial intelligence tools are inclusive and accessible and eliminate biases from data sets and algorithms, and to strengthen access to appropriate remedies and reparation for victims of violations and abuses of the right to education;

Calls upon all States to adequately assess when, how and to what extent to introduce technology and digital solutions, including artificial intelligence, in education systems, considering the positive and negative consequences and their impact on human rights and on human dignity, and, if necessary, to establish norms and standards on the use of technology in education, in collaboration with other stakeholders, including technology industries and private educational institutions, in compliance with international human rights law, prioritizing safety and affordability and based on a learner-focused and age-appropriate approach and on the principles of availability, accessibility, acceptability and adaptability of education for all;

Calls upon all States to take appropriate measures to accelerate efforts to bridge digital divides and technological gaps, including but not limited to those based on economic status, gender, age, disability and migration or refugee status, through, inter alia, infrastructural developments, and not only to combat discrimination and bias in the development and use of new technologies, particularly in terms of access to products and services that are essential for the enjoyment of the right to education, but also to ensure accessible and quality education at all levels, in order to increase digital competencies, particularly of educators, as well as the digital, media and information literacy and innovation skills of all, including of women, girls and persons with disabilities, while ensuring the protection of personal data in the use of technology in education;

Urges States to provide compulsory free, inclusive and equitable quality primary education to all, to ensure that free secondary education in its different forms and higher education are made generally available and accessible, and to consider providing free, public, inclusive, equitable and quality early childhood care and education;

Encourages States to develop, in collaboration with other relevant stakeholders, educational policies and programmes for migrants in line with the principles of availability, accessibility, acceptability and adaptability of education, as well as of non-discrimination;

Welcomes:

The work of the Special Rapporteur on the right to education and the twenty-fifth anniversary of the mandate, celebrated in 2023;

The work of the treaty bodies and the special procedures of the Human Rights Council in the promotion of the right to education, and the work undertaken by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in the promotion of the right to education at the country, regional and headquarters levels;

The contribution of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, which is the lead agency on Sustainable Development Goal 4, including the Sustainable Development Goal 4-Education 2030 High-level Steering Committee, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and other relevant United Nations agencies and bodies towards attaining the goals of the Education 2030 Agenda and the education-related Sustainable Development Goals;

Welcomes the most recent reports of the Special Rapporteur on the right to education – on the right to academic freedom and the right to be safe in education as an integral part of the right to education, presented to the Human Rights Council, and on the role and rights of teachers and on artificial intelligence in education, presented to the General Assembly – and takes note with appreciation of the principles for implementing the right to academic freedom;

Stresses the importance of international cooperation, including policy dialogue and the exchange of good practices, and of technical cooperation, capacity-building, financial assistance and technology transfer on mutually agreed terms in facilitating the realization of the right to education, including through the strategic and adapted use of information and communications technology;

Encourages all States to measure progress in the realization of the right to education by, inter alia, developing national indicators, data collection, evaluation and monitoring capacities as important tools for the realization of the right to education and for policy formulation, impact assessment and transparency, and to ensure the availability of high-quality quantitative and qualitative data on education to different actors in society, including education authorities, monitoring entities, academic institutions, civil society actors and researchers;

Encourages the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the treaty bodies, the special procedures of the Human Rights Council, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and other relevant United Nations bodies and mechanisms, specialized agencies, funds and programmes, within their respective mandates, to continue their efforts to promote the full realization of the right to education worldwide and to enhance their cooperation in this regard, including by enhancing technical assistance to Governments and cooperating with civil society organizations and other stakeholders;

Commends the contribution of national human rights institutions, national mechanisms for implementation, reporting and follow-up, civil society, including non-governmental organizations, children and youth and parliamentarians to the realization of the right to education, including through cooperation with the Special Rapporteur;

Decides to remain seized of the matter.

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