By Tony Baker

RESULTS Educational Fund is happy to announce its partner organizations to pilot the Right to Education Index (RTEI). These five organizations where chosen from a competitive applicant pool of 15 organizations and all have a history of engaging with government and ministry officials to strengthen the education system in their country, experience in collecting information from national sources, and the capacity necessary to drive national interest and debate around education.

Pilot partner organizations Include:

HakiElimu will pilot RTEI in Tanzania. HakiElimu has worked since 2001 to see an open, just, and democratic Tanzania, where all people enjoy the right to education that promotes equity, creativity, and critical thinking. They have extensive experience in engaging government officials, including being instrumental in the 2015 Education and Training Policy, and since 2008 have conducted the Open Budget Survey, using its findings to advocate for greater budget transparency.

The Civil Society Action Coalition on Education for All (CSACEFA) will pilot RTEI in Nigeria. CSACEFA has worked since 2004 as the leading civil society organization (CSO) voice in education with a focus on ensuring access to quality education through building the capacities of CSOs in the country. Their in country advocacy efforts in the past have aided the abolition of user fees for non-indigenes in the Zamfara state in 2004 and the strengthening of the teachers’ development policy in the Kwara state in 2013. CSACEFA was the hosting organization of the first RTEI consultation, held in Lagos in 2013.

The Education Coalition of Zimbabwe (ECOZI) will pilot RTEI in Zimbabwe. Over the last seven years ECOZI has been involved in evidence based advocacy to ensure Zimbabwe attains its educational goals, as well as those set for in Education for All (EFA) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). ECOZI has coordinated a unified CSO voice in Zimbabwe that advocates for fee and levy abolition and helped the government align the Education Act with the new national constitution, which came into effect in 2013.

The Civil Society Network for Education Reforms (E-Net Philippines) will pilot RTEI in the Philippines. Established in 1999, E-Net Philippines is a network of 150 organizations that work together to advance the right to education for all Filipinos. They have experience engaging at all levels, from organizing and training Local School Boards or Development Councils to sitting as a co-chair on the National Education for All Committee (NEC). They have particular expertise in educating an advocating around financing for education where the Alternative Budget Initiative (ABI) trains CSOs on budget literacy and analysis.

Foro por el Derecho a la Educacion (Foro) will pilot RTEI in Chile. Since 2003 Foro has provided space for diverse organizations to collaborate around issues on the right to education in Chile.  In 2013 they campaigned for the rights of children with disability, and Foro provided key research support on a 2014 Alternative Report which focused on privatization and inequality in the Chilean education system and was submitted by the Global Initiative for Social and Economic Rights to the 54th session of the UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural rights.

Using the RTEI Pilot Questionnaire, pilot partner organizations will be collecting pertinent information from July to August which will be used by RESULTS Educational Fund to construct the index and produce a global report. To better capture the state of the right to education in their country pilot partner organizations will be producing brief country reports highlighting issues of particular importance to their context.