The government plays a central role in education in all countries—not only in defining what students should learn, but also in providing most of the funding for primary and secondary education.  The right to education is guaranteed in article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, articles 13 and 14 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and article 28 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. A complete list of international norms, as well as information on regional and national-level standards, on the right to education is available on the web site of the Right to Education Project.

UNESCO has connected the right to education directly to the government’s budget by suggesting that, in a large number of countries, governments should devote at least 6% of their gross domestic product [GDP] to education. This figure can be useful to civil society groups in those countries as internationally-endorsed benchmarks towards which their governments should be aiming. While some countries are indeed aiming to reach this level of funding, others are falling woefully short.

A lot of civil society work on the right to education and government budgets is directed to overcrowding in classrooms, the quality of the teaching and teacher training, as well as school fees. A significant proportion of the work is directed to issues at the primary school level, although some also looks at funding for secondary schools.

While the adequacy of allocations for education in the budget are important, of equal importance is how much of those allocations are actually spent on education, what they are spent on and how well they are spent. These questions are the principal focuses of the civil society budget work currently being done on the right to education.