The case of Brazil offers an excellent example of how the Abidjan Principles can be used by civil society to influence national education policy and regulatory processes. The Brazilian Campaign for the Right to Education (BCRE), a coalition of over 300 organisations, works to ensure education is recognised as a fundamental right, not a commodity. The Campaign engages in advocacy, policy influence, research, mobilisation, and international collaboration to defend public education for all.
Video: Abidjan Principles in Practice - Brazil I Success advancing the right to education
BCRE played a central role in developing the Abidjan Principles, contributing to their drafting and translating them into Portuguese. In the video above, Andressa Pellanda, General Coordinator at the Brazilian Campaign for the Right to Education (BCRE), explains how the Campaign promotes the Principles as a global human rights standard for education and advocates for their adoption in Brazil and other Portuguese-speaking countries.
Given Brazil’s context, where insufficient regulation of private education has been a cause for concern since the late 1980s, the BCRE has played an active role in connecting local and international efforts to ensure that Brazilian policies align with human rights standards while addressing the country’s specific realities.
Andressa elaborates that, during the post-pandemic education crisis in 2022, BCRE utilised the Abidjan Principles to advocate for stronger regulation of private sector involvement, arguing that privatisation can exacerbate inequality. These efforts included presenting at UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring Report launch and publishing research showing that over 50% of Brazil’s education financing laws fail to meet the principles’ guidelines.
Furthermore, Andressa talks about how in 2023, BCRE helped organise the Free Conference on Private Education, putting the Abidjan Principles at the centre of national discussions. The Campaign also led efforts to produce a report recommending that Brazil adopt the principles as a reference for national policy. A significant milestone came in 2024 when the National Conference on Education officially endorsed a proposal to expand regulation of private and community education, incorporating the Abidjan Principles.
Discussing the BRCE’s next steps, Andressa explains that the coalition will continue to use the APs “so that more people can understand the Principles, not just as guidelines, but also as globally recognised human rights standards”.
“It is useful and necessary to adapt [the Abidjan Principles] to each country’s context, identifying gaps in our legal system and to push for their adoption in decision-making spaces at national levels.
The fight for education as a right, not a privilege, is far from over, but with collective action we can ensure that every child in Brazil and beyond has access to quality, public and free education. Together we can make education a right for all.
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BCRE continues to advocate for the widespread adoption of the Principles. To learn more about their work, you can watch the video here.