Part A Executive Summary General Recommendations and Observations 1. An important role for National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs)7 is to assist the work of their governments in defining, promoting, providing and monitoring the right to education. In accordance with international standards, primary education should be compulsory and available free to all. Secondary and vocational or technical training should be generally available and accessible to all. There should be a progressive introduction of free education at this level. Higher education should be equally accessible to all. 2. NHRIs should ensure that their governments acknowledge that education is a right that is vital to both individual development and economic growth. To this end, NHRIs must encourage governments to allocate the maximum available resources to ensure the realisation of the objectives of the right to education. 3. Where the full realisation of all rights to education cannot able to be achieved immediately, NHRIs must encourage the progressive realisation of the right, to maximum standards and within the shortest period reasonably attainable. 4. NRHIs should ensure that National EFA Plans and other education sector strategies are devised, monitored and implemented from a human rights perspective (nondiscrimination and substantive equality and the five A’s; availability, accessibility, acceptability, adaptability and accountability8). 5. NRHIs should assist their governments in the review of progress towards the Education for All goals of 20159 by ensuring that rights-based indicators, recently developed by UNESCO and UNICEF, are utilised in the review. 7 See Appendix 4 for background information on NHRIs and the right to education. We are grateful to Mr Sheldon Shaeffer of UNESCO for his suggestion of the final “A” of accountability. 8 15