February 2026. We provided a response to the Independent Special Advisor on Education Reforms Call for Views.
Improvement
Realising every child’s right to an education is key to driving improvement in education. The right to an education has, in international human rights law, always been aspirational. In the UNCRC (https://www.cypcs.org.uk/rights/uncrc/full-uncrc/), the right to education is contained within two articles.
Measuring improvement in schools must be linked to the purpose of education as laid out in the UNCRC. Doing so will involve innovative approaches to metrics and challenging historic assumptions which measure improvement simply in academic terms. Improvement should be measured by how well it delivers a human rights-based education for all children and young people. Measurements must include qualitative data on children’s experiences of education.
Article 28 addresses the right to primary, secondary and higher education. It envisages secondary education taking different forms including general and vocational education. It also addresses attendance and discipline in schools, requiring schools to act in a manner consistent with the child’s human dignity.
Article 29 focusses on the aims of education. It envisages a broad education aimed at “the development of the individual child’s personality, talents and abilities, in recognition of the fact that every child has unique characteristics, interests, abilities, and learning needs”. This kind of personalised approach to education is essential to improving attainment for all.
In our report on children’s views of the right to education This is Our Lives, it matters a lot: putting children’s rights at the heart of education (https://www.cypcs.org.uk/wpcypcs/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/March-2025-Education-reform-report-FINAL.pdf) we drewon children’s views of education to highlight how the right to education could be better realised for children and young people in Scotland. In addition to analysing children’s views through Articles 28 and 29, This is Our Lives contains an outline on the history and context of the right to education within international human rights law.
Meaningful participation of children and young people (Article 12 UNCRC) must be a central part of developing new approaches to measuring improvement.
Teachers and other support staff play a vital part in driving improvement at school, but they must be properly trained and supported to do so. One of our good practice examples highlighted the impact of a support and supervision programme for headteachers in Highland and the beneficial impact this had for children and young people (https://www.cypcs.org.uk/news-and-stories/commissioner-highlights-support-programme-for-headteachers-with-positive-impact-on-childrens-rights/). We are pleased to see similar models being developed in other areas, however there is currently no national definition or model for support and supervision for education staff in Scotland.
Support for teaching staff is also essential to ensuring all children’s rights are realised. In particular, the presumption of mainstream means that there must be support available for classroom teachers, to ensure that they have the skills and knowledge to properly support all children in their class. In This is Our Lives we also highlighted the vital role that pupil support staff play in realising the right to education and the importance of including them in school planning and improvement cycles.
Funding
Human rights law places a duty on states to make maximum use of available resources to realise the full range of children’s economic, cultural and social rights contained within the UNCRC. The term “available resources” recognises that some less developed states will face challenges funding education, it should not be read as a reason to restrict or reduce funding and in General Comment No. 19 on public budgeting for the realisation of children’s rights (Article 4), the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child make it clear that states should not deliberately take retrogressive measures (https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/838730?ln=en&v=pdf).
However, assuming maximum use has been made of available resources, how those resources are allocated is a political decision. There is no human rights argument for centralised or decentralised funding models providing they are both able to ensure children’s rights are realised.
How education is funded is not something children have raised with us, although they do frequently raise lack of funding or other resources impacting on the education of children and young people. We’re particularly concerned that at times lack of resource restricts some children’s access to education, for example through not having adequate support to attend full-time, limited alternative provision for children not in school, waiting lists for assessment and support and part-time timetables. We have previously highlighted the positive evaluation of the work of i-sgoil however they are not resourced to meet the demand for children who are trying to access this, and we are aware of other services in similar situations. Alternative education provision for children: Learning from the e-Sgoil model – The Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland
We therefore do not have a position on any particular funding models and, where funding is devolved, the state retains a duty to put in place frameworks which ensure that funding is used in a way which maximises the realisation of the human rights of all children.
Resourcing has been a recurring theme in the various education reviews over the last 6 years, but the concern has generally been about too little resource and what is resourced, rather than how or where that resourcing is allocated or used. In This is Our Lives, we highlighted that children often raise the impact of resourcing issues for ASN on their right to education. We called on the Scottish Government and education authorities to urgently undertake a full analysis of the resources and infrastructure required to deliver an inclusive education system across Scotland. This must result in robust economic modelling and a place for future investment and implementation. It is vital that children and young people have meaningful opportunities to actively participate in this process.
Governance
Children have a right participate in decisions which affect them at any level (Article 12 UNCRC). This includes participating in decision making by the Scottish Government and national agencies, as well within local authorities, schools and when decisions about their individual needs. Decision makers at all levels should have the capacity to support children and young people’s participation in decision making.
It needs to be clearly understood that this is a right to *participate in* not just influence school decisions and education decisions at local, regional and national level. This may be challenging for those with a more traditional approach to school management and organisation governance but there is clear evidence supporting participation as a way not just to better realise children’s rights but to drive school improvement.
There is still a lack of clarity of how children and young people’s quality, inclusive participation is embedded and shaping education decisions. As indicated in our response to the questions on Improvement, participation is a child’s right and it extends to all children, including those with complex needs, those who are not regularly attending school and those with a history of exclusion from school. Participation must never be treated as a privilege or reward. It is only through the meaningful participation of all children and young people that effective change will be possible in Scottish education.
In December 2025, we hosted the Shoogle Lab, an event planned by our Young Advisors in partnership with Professor Laura Lundy, an internationally recognised expert on children’s participation. A number of key decision makers from across the education system attended. The keynote speaker at the event was Dame Evelyn Glennie who spoke about the importance of listening in schools and demonstrated that being listened to was an important part of school inclusion. Our office commissioned Professor Lundy to produce a report on the importance and evidence of impact of participation in education ahead of the event (https://www.cypcs.org.uk/wpcypcs/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/listen-to-children.pdf).
By incorporating the UNCRC into domestic law, the Scottish Government made a promise to the children of Scotland that it would ensure that their human rights would be realised and respected.
No matter how empowered the system is, the government remains the human rights duty bearer. They have a duty to put in place systems to ensure that children’s rights continue to be realised and respected. Any new governance structures must include quality assurance and legal accountability to guarantee children’s human rights.
This includes access to child friendly complaints processes which provide effective remedy when a child’s rights are not realised. At present the right to remedy is delivered two ways, via the ASN tribunal for the small number of children with relevant complaints but primarily through the local authority complaints process and the Scottish Public Sector Ombudsman. It is essential if any governance changes are proposed these build on and do not reduce a child’s rights to remedy.
In a submission to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in 2024, we highlighted the barriers that children face when making complaints (https://www.cypcs.org.uk/resources/gc27-aug-24/ ). We also supported our young advisors to make their own submission, which focussed on education, to the Committee (https://www.cypcs.org.uk/resources/gc27-yag-dce24/). We were concerned that there was very limited awareness of complaints processes amongst the group and that they had very little confidence that their complaints would receive a response without the intervention of a parent. Child friendly complaints processes must be fully embedded across all schools and their availability must be promoted to children and young people.