By Manos Antoninis, Director, GEM Report

The International Symposium on the Future of the Right to Education held yesterday provided a crucial platform for marking today’s Human Rights Day and celebrating 65 years of the 1960 Convention against Discrimination in Education. This right is a foundation of the United Nations but, as the world changes, it needs to be revisited.

To begin with, we must be deeply indebted to those who gave the intellectual and political struggle to gift us the economic, social and cultural rights we enjoy today. They are what makes the UN unique. UNESCO’s approach to education as a principle, rather than as an operation, is becoming ever more relevant. But each time the discussion on the right to education opens, each time we are called upon to offer a contemporary interpretation to use the words of General Comment 13, it is impossible not to feel a sense of deep responsibility to treat the issue with the respect it deserves. All the more so now that, as we all know, it is such a challenging time to discuss rights.

Jurists and sociologists have made and continue to make major contributions to the conceptual development of the right to education, including the Special Rapporteur on the right to education who has put important issues on the agenda in a very short time. Economists – and social scientists working with data – are sometimes seen as reluctant converts to the rights agenda, even though it is an economist, Amartya Sen, who perhaps provided the most robust defence of this right as a capability.

The Global Education Monitoring Report has a key role in monitoring progress towards the fulfilment of the right to education. And yet there was no reference to data or monitoring in the Universal Declaration or the International Covenant, apart from a reference for states having to ‘prove’ why they may have taken regressive measures in education.

The role of the GEM Report is based on a mandate given by governments, which is not as formal as that of the Human Rights Council. But it has been influential because, ultimately, how else can we understand whether the availability, accessibility, acceptability and adaptability conditions of the right are met? It could be said that the efforts of the GEM Report team, and UNESCO’s consent to grant the report its editorial independence, have contributed to the Human Rights Council adopting Resolution 9 in June 2025  to recognize the role of data and monitoring in the realization of the right. Statisticians are not the first to spring to mind as defenders of the right to education, but they now have deservedly earned their place in this group.

The Resolution focuses on monitoring implications for national stakeholders. But the role of an international stakeholder such as the GEM Report should also have been mentioned. Because from the vantage point where we stand, we can share a perspective that can help everyone reflect upon past achievements, present flaws, and future challenges. We will do that with more intent in the upcoming three-part Countdown to 2030 report series. Our publications also serve as a reminder that the burden of proof on the fulfilment of the right is heavy, especially when it comes to the primary duty bearers: governments. How can we prove that they are not doing enough and in what area?

We are alarmed that 272 million are out of school, or rather at least 285 million if we include the 10 largest conflict-affected countries where we are most certainly undercounting. Yet governments have also put more than 100 million more children and youth to school since 2015. Is that not enough?

We forget that of the 1.6 billion children and youth of school age, 1.1 billion either do not complete secondary school (about 600 million) or do so but do not reach a minimum level of proficiency in reading and mathematics (another 500 million). But the texts on the right to education refer to quality in terms of infrastructure, funding and content. Not in terms of the outcome, which is ultimately what comes closest to the concept of capability.

But how fast can countries progress? And what is fair to expect of those burdened by historical legacies not of their making? This has been our preoccupation with the SDG 4 Scorecard series with the UIS.

We know that an extra euro, if well spent, improves education, even if we cannot prove how that euro exactly works. We also know that what matters most in education cannot necessarily be expressed in euros. We have been stressing that education has gone down as a priority in public budgets by 6% since 2015. But whose responsibility is this?

As we talk about the future of this right and the biggest threats it is facing, we should not just refer to the ignominy of Afghanistan and of those countries affected by conflict, where the violations are blatant. It is also important to take a look at the less obvious risks to the right to education but also to rights with which education is deeply connected: freedom of thought, freedom of expression, dignity and justice.

We have never been as knowledgeable about environmental science and yet perhaps never as distant from adjusting our behaviours for the benefit of future generations.

We have not found the means to agree upon whether a curriculum may not be contributing to international understanding and act upon this.

There is a push for young people to develop digital skills and yet we forget that it is those with the best reading skills that are better able to navigate the digital world.

Digital technology, including its application to education, is reducing attention spans and contributing to a decline in cognitive skills in rich countries.

It also risks transforming education from a social to an individualistic endeavour. While this is desirable in many contexts, we are only just beginning to realize the negative consequences when this approach is generalized.

The issues are complex, and we need to be prudent. We should be in no doubt that the right to education is challenged, in war zones as well as in many more invisible ways – and data have helped build the case. But what we have been unable to do is assign the responsibility fairly for these violations and decide on the measures to redress them. Without these, the laudable goal of the right to education remains an empty promise, akin to – what economists might call – an unfunded mandate.