On 27th January 2015 the Oxford Human Rights Hub, with the support of the Bertha Foundation, presented its first live webinar on the Right to Education.

The webinar was presented by Professor Sandra Fredman, Director of the OxHRH, and moderated by Associate-Professor Liora Lazarus.

The webinar was a great success, with more than 100 active participants from around the globe – from Australia to Peru, India to South Africa, Kenya to Ireland.  Participants had the opportunity to ask question and participate in live audience ‘polls’ using social media and the hashtag #Right2Education.  Some of the probing questions explored included:

• How does the right to education play out regarding responsibility of the global community? For example, some low income countries struggle to pay for basic primary education, despite allocating more than 20% of the government budget to education. Does the global community then have a responsibility to meet this right? Or just the state?
• If education is free for all, can this lead to ‘levelling down’? Conversely, does cross-subsidised education lead to inequality?
• Do schools charging fees breach education as a social right, and the duty of the state to provide?
• If the liberty of parents to choose education leads to segregation, can it be a legitimate motive for limiting it?

For those who were unable to attend the live webinar a recording of the event is now available by following this link.

A copy of the webinar slides can be found here.

This is the first of a series of planned free, live, webinars to be produced by the OxHRH this year.