A/HRC/29/30 rights commission recently launched investigations into the for-profit Curro Foundation School.40 71. Omega International, a chain of for-profit, low-fee private schools run according to a business model41 in Ghana, requires fees representing up to 40 per cent of poor households’ income42 and makes a mockery of education by not following the national curriculum43 and by employing unqualified instructors.44 The Special Rapporteur notes that providing tax relief or subsidies to private schools, rather than establishing good-quality public ones, violates the Constitution of Ghana, which provides that every person shall have the right, at his own expense, to establish and maintain a private school or schools. 72. Like Ghana, Kenya and Uganda too are allowing education to be commercialized and are encouraging for-profit schools, such as the Bridge International Academies. This violates these States’ international legal obligations to provide free basic education for all. It also contravenes the Children Act 2001 of Kenya (reinforced by the Basic Education Act 2013), by which every child is entitled to free basic education and the Government is responsible for providing such education. 73. Chile has embarked on a transformative, regulatory approach to undoing the devastating impact of 30 years of market-based policies in education, which have led to high levels of school segregation and stratification. 45 The Special Rapporteur hopes the current reforms will dismantle the underlying neoliberal economic policies and restore education as a public service through new, socially just and equity-focused legislation.46 He also hopes that the negative consequences of privatization in Chile will dissuade countries such as Peru from following that path. Nearly 25 per cent of Peruvian schools are private and, rather than protecting the public interest in education, Peru has issued legislative decree No. 882, which leaves it to the national consumer protection agency to regulate private schools. 74. In Sweden, the Government launched a major review to abolish the motivation of profit for providing education after falling in the Programme for International Student Assessment league tables and intends to bring in legislation by 2016 that would force private companies to reinvest all profits back into their schools. “The Swedish free school experiment shows that allowing for-profit providers into the school market has not led to increased performance and improved schools, but instead permitted another vested interest into education”.47 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 See http://pod702.co.za/Eyewitnessnews/docs/150519GDECurroReport.pdf. See www.periglobal.org/subject/for-profit-schools. See Curtis Reip, “Omega Schools Franchise in Ghana: “affordable” private education for the poor or for-profiteering?” in Education, Privatization and Social Justice: Case Studies from Africa, South Asia and South East Asia, Macpherson et al., eds., pp. 259–278. See http://globalinitiative-escr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/260814-Education-Privatization-inGhana-CRC-pre-session-report_FINAL.pdf. See ibid. See “Decommodifying Education in Chile”, 2014. Available from www.educationincrisis.net/blog/item/1122-decommodifying-education-in-chile?-bachelets-reformsin-the-face-of-persistent-educational-inequalities. See “Sweeping reforms set to end for-profit education in Chile”, 20 May 2014. Available from http://theconversation.com/sweeping-reforms-set-to-end-for-profit-education-in-chile-26406. See Richard Vaughan, “No return for Sweden’s free schools”, TES Magazine, 24 October 2014. Available from https://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storyCode=6447747. 13