A/HRC/14/25 overlooked. Even when recognized, equivalency is often problematic. This can lead to denial of access to schools50 and/or inappropriate placement levels, as well as in unemployment or underemployment. 58. The disadvantages implicit in this situation are felt at the individual, local, community, national, regional and international levels, serving also to inhibit integration and social cohesion.51 59. Equally, inadequate attention to the quality and impact of mutual recognition systems risks further discrimination and disadvantage of already precarious, marginalized populations. For instance, the requirement for presentation of national documentation directly discriminates against refugees (who may have fled their homes) and irregular migrants when they seek opportunities for education and training. VIII. Learning for life 60. The legal and normative framework discussed above has led to the increased reduction of education to compulsory primary and secondary schooling in developed countries and compulsory primary schooling in the developing world. Yet, paradoxically, there is a parallel and broadening policy consensus on the value of “lifelong learning”. The Special Rapporteur welcomes this focus because of the possibilities it offers to the notion of collective learning,52 while aware that critics also point to the narrowing of this ideal to economic instrumentalism and a focus upon credentials rather than learning competences. If migrant, refugee and asylum-seeker populations are excluded from opportunities for learning over their lifetime, this might add a cumulative process of marginalization. If learning is viewed in terms of formal credentials and not competences that reflect prior learning, then considerable pools of knowledge are ignored, talent is wasted and opportunities for social inclusion are jeopardized. Unless lifelong learning programmes can focus on the emancipatory potential of learning and collective learning, then they risk leaving significant populations behind.53 Low socio-economic status, migration, disability and gender are key characteristics for those at risk of exclusion from lifelong learning. 61. Lifelong learning cannot be disassociated from immigration law, which often forces migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers into illegality and which may take precedence over and/or be in conflict with the right to education. Indeed, a number of questionnaire respondents supported the claims in wider literature on the issue pointing to such tensions. The attention of the Special Rapporteur has been drawn to the practice of migrant children being detained by police on the grounds of their immigration status while travelling to school and the dependence on permanent legal residence for education access and opportunity. 50 51 52 53 GE.10-12879 Refugees states: “the Contracting States shall accord to refugees treatment as favourable as possible, and, in any event, not less favourable than that accorded to aliens generally in the same circumstances, with respect to … the recognition of foreign school certificates, diplomas, degrees”. Related is the lack of official accreditation from migrant and refugee-run schools, created as a response to lack of mainstream educational opportunity and access. See Marisa O’Ensor, “Education and self-reliance in Egypt”, Forced Migration Magazine, No. 33 (2010). See Gudmund Hernes and Michaela Martin, eds., Accreditation and the global higher education market (Paris, International Institute for Educational Planning, 2008). John Holford, Peter Jarvis and Colin Griffin, eds., International perspectives on lifelong learning (London, Kogan Page, 1998), p. ix. The attendant implication being the mutual learning of migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers and nationals of all ages. See, generally, John Field, Lifelong Learning and the new educational order (Stoke-on-Trent, Trentham Books, 2008), pp. 113–143. 15