Human rights education

Incorporating human rights education in the public school system

Lrubenstein — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 12:32:17 -0500

The Albanian Center for Human Rights (ACHR) collaborated with the Albanian Ministry of Education to bring human rights education into all public schools in the country. They took advantage of the post-communist transition period, negotiating with the new democratic government officials to launch a long-term process in which they would prepare Albanian citizens to participate fully in a democracy. Coming out of a political context in which all policies were decided and enacted on a national level, they were able to create a vision to affect the entire education system and have a nationwide impact.

After 45 years of an oppressive and isolationist communist dictatorship, in 1991 Albania faced a new world of democratic possibilities, with mountains of inherited political, economic and social problems and an institutional infrastructure ill-prepared to face them. Education was a particular challenge. To make the most of their new democracy, Albanians needed an educational system that prepared its citizens for critical thinking and encouraged political participation. The Albanian Center for Human Rights (ACHR) developed an ambitious plan to integrate human rights education into the official curricula of all public schools in the country. The group took advantage of the unique political moment provided by the post-communist transition, negotiated with the Albanian Ministry of Education and Science (MoES) and its Institute for Pedagogical Research (IPR), and implemented the plan. The Albanian Parliament had ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1993 and integration of HRE in public schools was the first step toward implementing the convention. ACHR was able to secure a written commitment from the MoES to implement HRE projects in public schools.

After securing the agreement, ACHR began establishing pilot projects, carrying out large training sessions for teachers, and adapting international human rights education materials for Albanian classrooms. With the core group of trained teachers, activity books were developed for every grade level. They also created pilot schools, involving teachers and administration in training other teachers. The trained teachers in turn carried out trainings for all the school’s teachers. Eventually, all teachers in the pilot schools were trained in human rights and its history, international mechanisms, and human rights methodologies and activities in and out of the classroom. ACHR also introduced HRE into schools that prepare primary and secondary school teachers, by securing agreements from universities to implement a curriculum developed by international experts and pedagogues.

By the end of the decade, ACHR had developed special curricula material in many subjects for all age groups, trained thousands of teachers to use the materials, set up 42 pilot schools throughout the country, and initiated a curriculum in the teachers colleges to integrate the teaching of human rights into their preparation.

Because of their efforts and this cooperation human rights education was incorporated into the public school system and several teacher training programs.

Greetings to the New Tactics Community

NPalasz — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 12:11:48 -0500

My name is Nicole Palasz. I used to work with the New Tactics project, and I am excited to reconnect with all of you. I am sorry I have been slow to join the discussions, but I look forward to being an active member of the New Tactics online community. I have enjoyed reading your blog entries so far.

I now work with the Institute of World Affairs in Wisconsin, promoting global education in area schools. I am committed to expanding human rights education here, and would welcome your thoughts and experiences related to human rights education. Our community has a tremendous need for greater awareness of both local and global human rights issues.

New Tactics Community Members

Police Training

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:09 -0500

by Dr. Arie Bloed, Forum Asia Foundation, Thailand

Download full notebook below.

This notebook discusses how a strategy to work toward promoting community policing in Thailand and other countries in Asia utilized the introduction of a unique, computer-based police training education program to engage and enlist the support of key leadership of the Royal Thai Police (RTP) to champion the training tool. As a tactic, the computer-based police training program provides an excellent tool to help police more effectively address their own immediate day-to-day policing challenges while also serving to build mutual trust, acknowledgement and support.

"Police training about use of force and firearms in Thailand so far didn’t include much about psychology, only about the technical skills of shooting. So this is completely new and very important. We need to know how our brains are functioning in a situation of potential violence in order to avoid making mistakes."–Thai Police Trainee

Forum-Asia (FA)–as a regional NGO, and Arie Bloed, as a foreign consultant with expertise in the design and development of a unique computer-based police training program–engaged and enlisted the support of top leadership of the Royal Thai Police (RTP) to implement the training program in Thailand. To date, the engagement and support has resulted in the successful training and development of a core cadre of seventeen Thai police trainers from different institutions and departments of the RTP. It has also resulted in co-sponsorship between FA and the RTP of a regional workshop that took place in June 2004 that introduced the police training program to representatives from civil society and top police officials from eight other Asian countries. As a result, FA began a similar program with police in Cambodia. The program in Cambodia is now in the process of implementation and the first ToT was organized in October 2005.

FA chose to introduce a professional police training program with the RTP as a first step in opening the doors for more long-term co-operation aimed at supporting the strategic goal to introduce community policing, more accountability and transparency.

It is remarkable that the ’generic’ COLPI training modules originally developed for use in former socialist countries are considered highly applicable to the further professionalization of police in many other countries. Contrary to expectations, the fact that only ’white faces’ in ’neutral’ police uniforms are seen in the many film scenarios has appeared to be even an asset. Thai, as well as Mongolian, police students consider these scenarios to be important sources of inspiration, as in their view they reflect modern policing in the more developed countries in the world.

A very important aspect of FA’s tactical approach was not to label the training program "Police and Human Rights," but rather "Professional Policing." This concept was a program of police and for police. FA wanted to address the practical behavioural skills which police officers need in their day-to-day work. FA offered the police a practical training that would meet the needs of police themselves.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.