A/HRC/35/11 D. Privatization 23. The expansion of privatized education may raise the cost of quality education and lead to disinvestment in public education, which could further entrench gender inequality in society.26 Many private schools have discriminatory admission requirements and are profit driven, and therefore not universally and equally accessible. They do not always follow the national curriculum or employ qualified teachers; some may not be registered with the national authorities or may be privately managed with limited government oversight, accountability or adherence to national prescriptive regulations. All these factors can limit girls’ participation in school, intensify prioritization of boys’ education and perpetuate discriminatory curricula, especially when the prevalence of privatized education leads to reduced free and accessible public education options. 27 24. States have the obligation to protect girls against exclusion from and interference by third parties in quality education, including private entities and non-State organizations such as religious or community schools or schools run by non-governmental organizations. Even where private education systems exist, States remain responsible for respecting, protecting and fulfilling every girl’s right to education. The Special Rapporteur on the right to education called upon States to “put in place an elaborate framework of regulations that are prescriptive, prohibitory and punitive, in order to control private providers”, “undertake full-scale investigations of fraudulent practices” and “preserve education as a public good”.28 E. Distance 25. When schools are far from homes, such as in rural and remote areas, the likelihood of girls’ non-attendance increases. Girls are also particularly affected when their freedom of movement is restricted, for instance, by discriminatory laws that require permission to travel by a male relative and/or parents’ reluctance to allow girls to travel long distances alone owing to safety considerations. Girls in remote and rural settings also tend to drop out of school more regularly than other girls owing to often exacerbated expectations relating to childcare, seasonal work or fetching firewood and water. Those girls make up a large proportion of the national illiteracy rate.29 Even when schools exist nearby, the quality of education offered may impact girls’ enrolment, attendance and completion. 26. States can bring education closer to home, including by ensuring that education plans and policies are sensitive to local realities and responsive to the specific needs of all children; by implementing alternative learning programmes, including the use of ICT to deliver courses, where appropriate platforms and quality assurance can be guaranteed; 30 and by providing safe facilities for girls attending boarding school and affordable forms of transportation to/from school.31 The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) highlighted its guidelines for gender-responsive sector planning that was rolled out with the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative and the Global Partnership for Education. 27. States have an obligation to ensure that quality education is physically accessible for all girls, including girls in rural and remote areas. States should, inter alia, improve educational infrastructure in rural areas; increase the number of qualified teachers, 26 27 28 29 30 31 6 See A/HRC/34/27, para. 33. See A/HRC/29/30, paras. 35, 57, 116 and 120. Ibid., paras. 116-132. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, general recommendation No. 34 (2016) on the rights of rural women, paras. 42-43; UNESCO, Global Education Monitoring Report 2016, pp. 18-19 and 28. Submissions from UNESCO, Estonia and the Russian Federation. See CEDAW/C/SLB/CO/1-3, paras. 32 (a) and 33 (a).