Educating the Next Generation

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:00 -0500

By Kozara Kati and Robert Gjedia

Download full notebook below.

In this notebook, we learn about utilizing political opportunities to partner with government and turn an ambitious vision into reality. The Albanian Center for Human Rights (ACHR) successfully 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. They focused on the next generation – the children – and on ensuring they learned about human rights. 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.

They sustained momentum by bringing in international support and educational experts and by effectively cooperating with the government’s Institute for Pedagogical Research (IPR). Because of their efforts and this cooperation human rights education was incorporated into the public school system and several teacher training programs.

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. Instead, it had the remains of a dogmatic and rigid communist educational system and curricula, which could not adequately teach students their rights and duties in this new society. 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.

In this tactical notebook we describe how ACHR took advantage of the unique political moment provided by the post-communist transition, negotiated collaboration with the Albanian Ministry of Education and its Institute for Pedagogical Research (IPR), and implemented the plan. By the end of the decade, we 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.

The Turkish translation of this notebook is provided to us by the Helsinki Citizen's Assembly.

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corporation, Albanian Center for Human Rights

Educating the Next Generation