Information on the implementation of the right to education at national level, including data, national education laws and policies, may be found on official government websites, for instance, on ministry of education websites.
State reports on the implementation of the right to education or human rights in general submitted to international human rights treaty monitoring bodies often provide information on education laws and policies.
NGOs’ reports are also useful resources to find information on the implementation of the right to education, particularly on the gaps in laws, policies, or practice, and on violations.
A number of databases compile information on statistics, as well as laws and policies on education. Below, is a list of recommended sites to guide you in your research.
The UNESCO database provides key information on the right to education in all its Member States:
- ratification status: whether states have ratified treaties relating to the right to education
- State reports on the right to education submitted to UNESCO
- concluding observations of UN treaty bodies that concern the right to education
- constitutional guarantees of the right to education
- national laws on education
- national policies on education
The database offers the option to search by country and by theme.
This ratification dashboard is a comprehensive data visualisation portal containing the latest status of ratification of 18 UN treaties and optional protocols. The dashboard allows users to view treaty ratification through interactive world and regional maps. Users can generate some statistical data such as number of State parties to a treaty and create filters to obtain a more tailored information on acceptance of individual communications procedure and inquiry procedure. Users can also view an aggregated map that shows the total number of treaties each Member State has ratified. Users can view a specific country profile, listing its ratification status for each treaty and a summary of declarations.
OHCHR database–Status of ratification searchable by country and by treaty
This page displays, by country or by treaty, the status of ratification of international human rights treaties. For each state, the system also provides information on the acceptance of the individual complaints and inquiry procedures.
This database provides fully searchable versions of publicly available constitutions written since 1789. For most of the constitutions, it provides the current version as well as previous versions, which can be used to compare the evolution of the constitutional guarantees of the right to education.
This site provides two main datasets. The first, ‘chronology of constitutional events’, contains information about constitutional events, for example, amendments and new constitutions. The second, ‘characteristics of national constitutions’ contains comparative information on current constitutional characteristics. There are many variables of interest to right to education researchers, for example: [EDUCATE] which indicates whether there are constitutional provisions concerning education and [EDCOMP] and [EDCOMPL] which indicate whether the constitution stipulates that education is compulsory and if so, to what level.
Planipolis database provides legislations, policies and plans on education from official sources of UNESCO Member States.
The International Bureau of Education (IBE) provides a country database that includes: profiles of education systems (including laws and policies), a selection of official reports from national education authorities, information on national curricula and links to official information sources on education (including ministries of education).
WORLD Policy Forum–Data on education
The World Policy Analysis Centre has published comparative data on law and public policies in 191 countries covering poverty, discrimination, education, health, child labour, child marriage and parental care. It covers issues such as constitutional guarantees for primary, secondary and higher education, tuition, free and compulsory education, teacher qualifications and government spending on education as well as constitutional protection for equity and against discrimination. Information is presented on maps.
The Eurydice Network provides information on and analyses of European education systems and policies as well as comparative thematic reports and key data series (statistics, data and indicators). Within Eurydice, Eurypedia, the European Encyclopaedia on National Education Systems, presents a comprehensive picture of education systems and reforms in Europe. A country interactive map provides access to information on national education systems, either in English or in the language of the country.
This database provides information on special needs education in European countries. It includes: contacts at the ministry of education and special education needs, and other useful contacts; information on laws that guarantee special needs education; information on the financing of special needs education and quality indicators and data for special needs education.
Education Policy Outlook provides policy country profiles, which reviews the current context and situation of national education systems and examines the challenges and policy responses. It informs about students (how to raise outcomes for all in terms of equity and quality and preparing students for the future); institutions (how to raise quality through school improvement and evaluation and assessment); system (how the system is organised to deliver education policy in terms of governance and funding).
The Right to Education Intitiative provides case summaries on the right to education from national, regional and international judicial and quasi-judicial bodies. Each case summary includes: the facts of the case, the decision, commentary, the relevant legal instruments applied for the case, and keywords related to the issue.
This database provides jurisprudence emanating from the United Nations treaty bodies which receive and consider complaints from individuals, including: the Human Rights Committee (CCPR), the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), and the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC).
ESCR-Net caselaw database offers decisions on economic, social, and cultural rights, including the right to education. In the thematic focus, select 'education rights' to find case-law on the right to education.
This case-law database contains over 2,500 summaries of human rights decisions from both domestic Commonwealth courts and from courts and tribunals applying international human rights law, such as the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the European Court of Human Rights. It includes decisions on the right to education.
CLADE provides national and regional case-law examples of the right to education in Latin America. Information is in Spanish.
The CLA is a multilingual collection of the decisions of African human rights mechanisms. The CLA offers the most comprehensive access to African human rights law and case-law in English, French and Portuguese.
The HUDOC database provides access to the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights, the European Commission of Human Rights, and the Committee of Ministers. To find case-law on the right to education select in the article filter: P1-2 (Article 2 of the Optional Protocol 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights which guarantees the right to education). This article can also be selected in combination with other articles of the convention. For example, P1-2 + 9, the right to education in combination with the freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
This database contains information on collective complaints submitted to the European Committee of Social Rights and its decisions, as well as its conclusions made within the framework of the reporting system. Relevant case-law on the right to education is searchable under Article 17 as well as Articles 9, 10 and 15.
This database contains judgments related to children’s rights from high-level national and international courts around the world. Case summaries also include excerpts from relevant judicial discussions of the Committee on the Rights if the Child and, where possible, links to full text decisions.
This database contains case-law on minority rights, including the right to education.
This database provides country-specific human rights information deriving from UN human rights mechanisms, including the treaty bodies, the Special Procedures and the Universal Periodic Review.
Amnesty International provides information on the human rights situation in more than 150 countries. Some reports provide information on the violations of the right to education.
The Global Education Monitoring Report provides background papers and country reports on education, searchable by theme, country and region. Reports include information on child labour, costs and financing, development aid, disability, disadvantaged groups, quality, gender, inclusive education, languages, literacy, and teachers.
The Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack provides profiles of 30 countries where there was a pattern of attacks on education for the period 2009-2013.
The Global Initiative publishes individual country reports for every state and territory worldwide. Each report describes the law relating to corporal punishment of children in schools and summarises the reforms needed in order to achieve full prohibition.
UIS provides educational statistics for more than 200 countries and territories, covering all education levels and addressing key policy issues, such as gender parity, teachers and financing. It provides country profiles, which summarise key education and literacy statistics, as well as detailed statistical tables. The UIS site also provides tools that allow users to generate customised statistical tables on education (literacy, early childhood, primary, secondary and higher education, teachers and education finance). UIS is also the official source of data used to monitor Education 2030 and the education-related goals and targets of the Sustainable Development Agenda as well as related international initiatives.
Edstats data comes from a wide variety of sources including The World Bank, UIS, UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Edstats includes: enrolment, progression, completion indicators; learning outcomes data; data on education inequities and expenditures on education. Country profiles are available as well as thematic maps for selected education indicators. Through the data query system, it is possible to select specific data and to create maps, charts and tables based on the initial query.
UOE covers the outputs of educational institutions, the policy levers that shape educational outputs, the human and financial resources invested in education, structural characteristics of education systems, and the economic and social outcomes of education, and learning and training throughout life.
This annual publication is the authoritative source for accurate and relevant information on the state of education around the world. It provides data on the structure, finances, and performance of education systems in the OECD’s 35 member countries, as well as a number of partner countries. It includes data on private education.
EPDC provides education data at national and sub-national levels as well as in-depth research on issues and challenges facing education in developing countries. Each country page displays a country profile with information on the education system and key statistics on education as well as analysis on education issues. It is possible to search for data related to each country by selecting relevant data such as level of education, specific indicators, gender, rural/urban, sub-national units and years.
SITEAL includes data on access to schools, completion rates and the levels achieved. It also provides information on the relationship between education and the labour market as well as between education and life conditions. Country profiles are also available. Information is in Spanish.
WIDE brings together data from demographic and health surveys and multiple indicator cluster surveys from over sixty countries to enable users to compare education attainment between countries, and between marginalised groups within countries, according to factors that are associated with inequality, including wealth, gender, ethnicity and location. Users can create maps, charts, infographics and tables from the data, to download, print or share online.
The HDI combines indicators of life expectancy, educational attainment and income, which aim at measuring development. The education component of the HDI measures mean of years of schooling for adults aged 25 years and expected years of schooling for children of school entering age.
The European Commission provides comparable data, statistics and indicators on education mainly for the European countries but also for some other countries. The main data source is the set of joint UOE (UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), OECD, Eurostat) questionnaires on education and other Eurostat-specific tables. The statistics refer to public and private education, full-time and part-time education disaggregated by level of education. The statistics cover enrolments, entrants, graduates, personnel, language learning and expenditure, continuing vocational education and lifelong learning.
Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ)/StatSkil interactive maps
Data on Southern and Eastern Africa is organised as interactive maps and graphs focusing on education indicators for access, education systems, expenditure, gender equality, out-of-school children, progression rates, school life expectancy, teachers, tertiary education, and quality.
The Learning Curve data bank provides a visual tool of internationally comparable education data, classified by education input indicators, education output indicators and socio-economic environment.
This barometer provides a comprehensive report on the quality of education and respect for labour rights in countries around the world. As well as examining all levels of education, from early childhood education to higher education, it explores a range of issues, such as academic freedom, gender equality, students with special needs, refugee and minority children, and child labour. It is possible to compare statistical data from two different countries.