The focus of this article is to provide a child rights analysis of the equity of educational experience afforded to young people outside mainstream schools by alternative providers. The dilemma for policy and existing practice is that alternative education supports children's right to an education as stated in Article 28 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child "when schools find they cannot". However, in accepting alternatives are we compromising those same children's rights to achieve access to education on the basis of equality of opportunity? This is a right enshrined in the same article. In order to explore this dilemma, the present paper will firstly consider policy and practice concerns with regard to alternative education, drawing on periodic reports from the Committee on the Rights of the Child for the United Kingdom and how these findings relate specifically to the situation in Northern Ireland. The paper will then look at the articles relevant to the issue of exclusion from education within the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. From this consideration of legal standards applicable to the issue of exclusion, the paper will focus on the complexities of the issue within the context of current debates on marginalized young people and education.