A/70/342
standards for quality in educational institutions under such arrangements.
Prescriptive regulations are specifically necessary when a Government enters into a
contractual partnership with a private service provider for school infrastructure, to
ensure that this meets the norms and standards of educational requirements, with
specific norms for infrastructure for technical and vocational education and training.
105. Moreover, regulations should be prohibitive as regards, for example,
ill-founded propaganda and commercial advertising in education, misleading claims
as to quality education by private partners and the repatriation of surpluses by
foreign-owned private institutions.
106. In addition to being prescriptive and prohibitive, regulations should also be
punitive, with sanctions for fraudulent and corrupt practices, such as false
declarations for tax evasion, and corrupt individuals and complicit companies, as is
the case with other criminal acts.25 Punitive regulations are necessary to control
abusive practices by private partner(s). Those practices include corruption in
procurement for schools infrastructure or in cross-border education, the false
exaggeration of student results and other violations which result from for -profit
corporate ownership.
107. The Special Rapporteur thus emphasizes the need for States to create a
comprehensive regulatory framework to control public-private partnerships in
education that is prescriptive, prohibitive and punitive.
B.
Accountability and monitoring mechanisms
108. The failure to enforce and monitor the regulatory frameworks within which
private schools operate has left the educational landscape open to corru pt practices
and manipulation. 26
109. Regulations on accountability should prescribe disaggregated reporting on
obligations, including financial reporting and performance measures. Those
requirements should include human rights-based indicators and be sufficiently
detailed to ensure that the right to education is being met.
110. The Special Rapporteur emphasizes the need for adequate rep orting
requirements and accountability mechanisms for public-private partnerships in
education, so as to ensure the full compliance of private partners with the normative
framework of the right to education, both as regards the global dynamics of public private partnerships and public-private partnership arrangements at the national
level.
111. States have the obligation under human rights law to establish conditions and
standards for private education providers and maintain a transparent and effective
system to monitor those standards with sanctions in case of abusive practices. That
responsibility cannot be fulfilled through voluntary compliance systems or
inadequate State monitoring and oversight.
112. It is important that States carefully enforce laws, rules and regul ations through
monitoring and enforcement. Governments should strengthen national human rights
__________________
26
15-12538
Geetha B. Nambissan “Low-cost private schools for the poor in India: some reflections” in India
Infrastructure Report 2012: Private Sector in Education (New Delhi and Abingdon, United
Kingdom, Routledge, 2013).
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