Malala for free schools

That Malala Yousafzai, the girl the Taleban tried to murder, is a brave and resolute young woman is not in doubt. The youngest person ever nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, she has won many awards, including the Sakharov Prize and an honorary degree from Edinburgh University, in her campaign for ‘the right to -education’.

But something curious is going on. Something crucial to her experience is always omitted when her life and mission are described by international agencies and the media. Education International, the global teachers’ union umbrella group, is typical. Malala is campaigning, they say, so that all can benefit from ‘equitable public education’; that is, government education. The BBC summary of her talk on her 16th birthday to the UN highlighted only ‘her campaign to ensure free compulsory education for every child’. Meanwhile Gordon Brown, now UN special envoy for global education, used the same event to ‘renew the call for all governments to guarantee equitable quality education for all’.