A/HRC/29/30 schools ... many private schools do worse than public schools”.13 Quality is also compromised by the high prevalence of underqualified teachers or instructors employed, on a temporary basis, in private schools run by small and large enterprises. This is in direct contravention with the UNESCO-International Labour Organization recommendation on status of teachers, which lays down a normative framework for the teaching profession and applies to teachers of both public and private schools. 46. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), “public schools with comparable student populations offer the same advantages” as private schools.14 These schools take credit for academic success, yet having educated wealthy parents is the most determining factor in such success.15 Generally, private schools are chosen owing to the lack or poor quality of public schools. V. International legal framework for the right to education 47. The State is primarily responsible for respecting, fulfilling and protecting the right to education. The liberty of parents and guardians to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions and the liberty of individuals and bodies to establish and direct educational institutions provided for in article 13 (3) and (4) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is not unfettered. Such freedom in education is subject to compliance with minimum standards in education, to which all private educational institutions are required to conform. 16 The failure to ensure that private educational institutions conform to the minimum educational standards required in articles 13 (3) and (4) constitutes a violation of the right to education. 17 48. The UNESCO Convention against Discrimination in Education contains similar provisions. It provides that the objective of the establishment or maintenance of private educational institutions should not be to secure the exclusion of any group, but “to provide educational facilities in addition to those provided by the public authorities” and that “the education provided conforms with such standards as may be laid down or approved by the competent authorities, in particular for education of the same level”. 49. Education is not a privilege of the rich and well-to-do, it is an inalienable right of every person. The State is both guarantor and regulator of education. The provision of basic education, free of cost, is not only a core obligation of States, it is also a moral imperative. 50. The Special Rapporteur considers it essential, when looking at privatization in education, to bear in mind State obligations in respect of the right to education: States must ensure promote, respect and fulfil the right to education.18 51. State responsibility for providing basic education free of charge is established in human rights law. According to the interpretation of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, under article 13 of the Covenant, States are regarded as having 13 14 15 16 17 18 8 See Zajda, Decentralization and Privatization, pp. 9 and 10. OECD, “Private schools: Who benefits?”, in PISA in Focus 7. Available from www.oecd.org/pisa/pisaproducts/pisainfocus/48482894.pdf. Available from www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/150331/dq150331d-eng.htm. See also Global Monitoring Report p. 216. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 13 (1999) on the right to education, para. 54. Ibid., para. 59. The obligation to fulfil incorporates both an obligation to facilitate and an obligation to provide (Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 13, paras. 46 and 47).