Part VI Refugee Rights and Realities, Ch.54 The Right to Education

Subject(s):

Right to education — Refugees

This chapter examines the right to education of refugees. International human rights instruments, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the Refugee Convention, provide a framework for the right to education for refugees. As a social right, and as reflected in the ICESCR, the right to education is to be progressively realized and requires positive action and allocation of funding. Like all human rights, it is dependent on action by government, the availability of public resources, and enforcement mechanisms. The devolution of responsibility for the education of refugees to States through recent policy further entrenches the role of the State in respecting, protecting, and fulfilling refugees’ right to education. The chapter then explores the intersection of global and national frameworks for the right to education for refugees and its realization in the form of access to schools. Despite the widely embraced global articulation of the right to education for all refugee children, the realization of the right to education is highly variable, being largely dependent upon their State of asylum.