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Education Education Education Education Education The Education Database was created through a systematic review of national constitution, law and policy guarantees extended to public education. To construct the database, WORLD analysts reviewed:

Original, legislative texts (education acts, child protection legislation, disability rights acts, and anti-discrimination legislation) identified primarily using the UNESCO Observatory on the Right to Education and the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) NATLEX database, current as of June 2018.

Non-legislative policy and government commitments, identified via the UNESCO Observatory on the Right to Education, UNESCO’s Planipolis Portal of Education Plans and Policies, country questionnaires fielded and published by UNESCO Institute for Statistics, the European Commission’s review of National Education Systems, and government education websites in place as of June 2018.

Full constitutional texts and all amendments as of May 2017 from official government websites, supplemented with Constitution Finder (University of Richmond), and other sources. For countries that did not have a written codified constitution, analysts reviewed all laws considered to have constitutional status.

All indicators reflect national-level constitutional, legislative, or policy guarantees. In countries where guarantees are set at the state or provincial level, the database captures information for the state or province with the lowest level of protection.Countries structure their education systems in many different ways. When countries do not split their education systems according to primary, lower secondary and upper secondary, we assigned these categories based on the available information on levels of schooling to increase comparability across countries. Stages of schooling were established as follows:

When countries have eight or more years of primary school and split it into stages, the upper level of primary is treated as lower secondary for comparability.

For a minority of countries that do not split secondary into levels, we apply the general secondary data to both levels of secondary education.

Indicators on tuition-free and compulsory education include constitutional guarantees to tuition-free and compulsory. Additional, dedicated constitutional rights to education are assessed separately, using the methodology detailed below.Constitutional Rights in EducationThe WORLD Policy Analysis Center analyzed national constitutional text in force as of May 2017.

The Constitutions database includes analyses of constitutions from all UN member states.

We only referred to additional legislation when it was explicitly referenced in the constitution.

Although the vast majority of countries have written constitutions in place, a few countries (e.g. the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and Israel) either have no written constitutions or have a series of laws that function similarly to a constitution, rather than a single text. In these cases, our data was collected from documents or laws that are considered to be constitutional in nature either by the country itself or by the legal community.

Why consider constitutions?Governments establish human rights through national and sub-national legislation, targeted programs and policies, and national constitutions. Among these tools, constitutions fulfill several unique and important functions:

Constitutions are fundamental building blocks of a nation’s government and laws. As such, they can play an important role in establishing values and rights.

Constitutions are particularly difficult to repeal or amend. Their commitments remain relatively stable and permanent even as different political parties assume power.

Constitutions are typically the highest laws of a country and so can be used to shape legislation and policies.

Constitutions often contain mechanisms for the legal enforcement of citizens’ rights. In countries around the world, such provisions have been used successfully to combat discrimination and hold governments accountable to their commitments.

Constitutions often outline broad rights that require complementary legislation or policies to be fully effective. For example, legislation that guarantees free secondary school helps realize the constitutional right to education. Nevertheless, constitutions’ critical role in formally establishing countries’ fundamental values makes them an important unit of analysis on their own.

For details on the variables included in this category, please see WORLD global maps on Education.For more information about WORLD’s approach to building globally comparative databases on policies affecting human health, development, well-being, and equity, please visit our Methodology page.