Free Education

Free education is education funded through government spending or charitable organizations rather than tuition funding. Primary school and other comprehensive or compulsory education is free in most countries (often not including primary textbook). Tertiary education is also free in certain countries, including post-graduate studies in the Nordic countries.^[1]

The Article 13 of International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights ensures the right to free education at primary education and progressive introduction of it at secondary and higher education as the right to education.^[2]

Free education–at various levels–has been guaranteed by both domestic constitutions and in international human rights treaties.

The cost of education first became a subject of international law following World War I, although only for certain countries and only in limited situations. The “Minority Treaties” guaranteed racial, religious, and linguistic minorities in specific European countries an equal right with other nationals to establish schools at their own expense, but where such groups formed a considerable proportion of the population, they were assured of an equitable share of public educational funds, as well as instruction in their languages in public primary schools.^[3]

In 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights declared that everyone has a right to education, and that education “shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages.”^[4]

In the first treaty dedicated to education–the 1960 Convention against Discrimination in Education— states undertake to “make primary education free and compulsory; make secondary education in its different forms generally available and accessible to all; [and] make higher education equally accessible to all on the basis of individual capacity.”^[5]

Under the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, countries recognize “the right of everyone to education,” and that “primary education shall be compulsory and available free to all;” secondary education, including technical and vocational education, “shall be made generally available and accessible to all by every appropriate means, and in particular by the progressive introduction of free education;” and that “higher education shall be made equally accessible to all, on the basis of capacity, by every appropriate means, and in particular by the progressive introduction of free education.”^[6] Countries undertake to “achieve progressively the full realization” of this right by all appropriate means and “to the maximum” of available resources.

The 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child states that countries “recognize the right of the child to education” and that they “shall, in particular … (a) Make primary education compulsory and available free to all; (b) Encourage the development of different forms of secondary education, including general and vocational education, make them available and accessible to every child, and take appropriate measures such as the introduction of free education and offering financial assistance in case of need; [and] (c) Make higher education accessible to all on the basis of capacity by every appropriate means.”^[7]

In June 2024, the UN’s Human Rights Council approved the establishment of a working group with the mandate of “exploring the possibility of, elaborating and submitting to the Human Rights Council a draft optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child with the aim to: … Explicitly state that, with a view to achieving the right to education, States shall: (i) Make public pre-primary education available free to all, beginning with at least one year; (ii) Make public secondary education available free to all.”^[8]