amongst states, pertaining to the value and importance of education in societies and the need to ensure protection of this right for all, regardless of status. Challenges faced by stateless children in accessing education 9. This section of the submission conveys information obtained by ISI during Education Consultations with 14 civil society partners that work directly with stateless communities, across multiple countries, including India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Malaysia and the Dominican Republic8. Discriminatory policies and arbitrary application of laws on equal access to education 10. In some states, overt discriminatory polices deny stateless children public school registration. For example, India and Bangladesh are both home to large populations of stateless Rohingya refugees but deprive this population of the necessary legal identity documents required to access basic education, healthcare, and a host of other services. 11. In 2018, a shift in Government policy in India relating to the issuance of identification documents created an adverse and precarious impact for refugees, particularly stateless Rohingya refugees who are deemed “illegal immigrants”. Since 2012, an undeniable regression in the enjoyment of basic rights has left the Rohingya in India particularly vulnerable, and unable to access services such as education. Prior to 2019, Rohingya refugees benefited from limited protection, including the possibility of access to education, which is no longer the case under current policies. 12. On accession to the ICESCR in 1998, Bangladesh entered a declaration to article 13 on the right to education, claiming it would implement the right in a “progressive manner”. To date stateless Rohingya children are barred from enrolling in the public education system and in 2019, several Rohingya children who had managed to access public institutions were expelled9. The Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights has previously called on Bangladesh to withdraw its declaration on the right to education, further noted with “deep concern” that stateless Rohingya children do not have access to education. 10 13. Stateless children are also denied education due to the arbitrary application of national laws that guarantee equal access to education. Such is the experience for stateless and undocumented children in the Dominican Republic, where Dominicans of Haitian descent have long been subjected to ethnic and racial discrimination. A controversial Constitutional Court ruling in 2013 further entrenched divisions after it stripped nationality from tens of thousands of Dominicans of Haitian descent following a reinterpretation of the country’s citizenship provisions. This act, together with the pre-existing situation facing Dominicans of Haitian descent has resulted in the “structural” and “administrative” exclusion from the public education system.11 Notwithstanding the constitutionally guaranteed right to education regardless of documentation, Dominicans of Haitian descent continue to be experience difficulty enrolling in primary and secondary schools. 8 The list of organizations that participated in consultations with ISI can be provided on request. Human Rights Watch, Bangladesh: Rohingya Refugee Students Expelled, April 1, 2019, available at Bangladesh: Rohingya Refugee Students Expelled | Human Rights Watch (hrw.org) 10 E/C.12/BGD/CO/1 11 Georgetown Law Human Rights Institute, Left Behind: How statelessness in the Dominican Republic Limits’ Children’s Access to Education, available at, Georgetown_HRI_Left-Behind_Report_Dominican_Republic_2014.pdf (right-to-education.org) 9 3