ICESCR concluding observations 2025, paragraph 57
Plain English recommendation
Government should:
(a) Ensure good and affordable early childhood education for all children, especially for children from disadvantaged backgrounds;
(b) Address lost learning opportunities that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic and prevent further disruption. These measures should support disadvantaged children in particular;
(c) Fully review the impact of education programmes, including Jersey Premium, to see if they have improved educational attainment gaps. Education programmes should raise educational attainment for children from disadvantaged backgrounds and those from low-income families to improve social mobility;
(d) Ensure that Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children, disabled children, migrant children and children from disadvantaged backgrounds can access good education that is sensitive to their cultures and meets their needs;
(e) Take steps to protect children from bullying, including cyberbullying, and violence in schools. This includes doing more to prevent bullying and violence in schools, and to promote understanding and tolerance;
(f) Take steps to eliminate discriminatory attitudes and stereotypes in educational materials and in schools. Ensure that educational institutions and teachers do not further these stereotypes, including during teacher training.
Original UN recommendation
The Committee recommends that the State Party, along with the devolved governments of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales:
(a) Guarantee high-quality and affordable early childhood education for all children, across all jurisdictions, especially for those from disadvantaged backgrounds;
(b) Adopt effective measures to mitigate learning opportunity loss in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular for disadvantaged children, and effectively prevent the further disruption of education;
(c) Evaluate, in a comprehensive manner, the impact of the existing programmes, including Jersey Premium, on improvement in the educational attainment gaps and adopt effective measures, with a view to raising the educational attainment levels of children from disadvantaged backgrounds and those from low-income families to promote social mobility;
(d) Ensure that Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children, children with disabilities, migrant children and children from disadvantaged backgrounds have access to quality education that is culturally appropriate and adapted to their needs;
(e) Take effective measures to ensure the protection of all children from bullying, including cyberbullying, and violence in schools and strengthen efforts to prevent those phenomena and promote understanding and tolerance;
(f) Take effective measures to eliminate discriminatory attitudes and stereotypes in educational materials and the school environment and ensure that educational institutions and teachers do not perpetuate such stereotypes, including through the provision of appropriate training programmes for teachers.
Date of UN examination
12/03/2025
Original UN document
Download the original ICESCR concluding observations 2025 on the UN website.
Last updated on 21/08/2025