Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps she has taken to respond to the recent recommendations by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on privatisation and the right to education.

The United Kingdom notes the recent recommendations of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. Our priority is to ensure children get the education they deserve and in the vast majority of cases this means investing in the state sector. However, where state provision is weak or non-existent we work with paid-for schools to provide an education to children who would otherwise get none.

It is important for national governments to define the appropriate balance between private and public provision in their country, in compliance with their international human rights obligations. We do not accept that DFID’s funding of private provision of education violates children’s right to an education. On the contrary, in many cases it secures it.