UNESCO - UNESCO Office in Dakar | Documentation Center

Sub-Regional workshop on integration of human rights and a culture of peace education into the Education for All National Action Plans

Banjul - Gambia, 17 to 21 June 2002

The UNESCO Regional Office for Education in Africa (BREDA) organises in collaboration with the Gambia National Commission for UNESCO a sub-regional workshop on integration of human rights and a culture of peace education into the Education for All National Action Plans from 17 – 21 June 2002 in Banjul, Gambia. The participants invited to the workshop include: National Education for All coordinators, specialists in human rights and peace education, UNICEF, the UNESCO Chair on a Culture of Peace in Côte d’Ivoire, The International Bureau of Education and UNESCO Headquarters.

Background

At the World Education Forum in Dakar, April 2000, participants committed themselves to The Dakar Framework for Action and its six objectives in order to attain Education for All by the year 2015. The sixth objective: “improving all aspects of the quality of education and ensuring excellence of all so that recognized and measurable learning outcomes are achieved by all, especially in literacy, numeracy and essential life skills” includes an engagement to develop human rights and peace education in formal and non-formal education.

In the Dakar Framework for Action it is spelt out in the strategy that:

“Schools should be respected and protected as sanctuaries and zones of peace. Education programmes should be designed to promote the full development of the human personality and strengthen respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms as proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 26). Such programmes should promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, and all ethnic and religious groups; should be sensitive to cultural and linguistic identities, and respectful of diversity; and reinforce a culture of peace. Education should promote not only skills such as the prevention and peaceful resolution of conflict but also social and ethical values.”

At three regional meetings organised by UNESCO-BREDA on human rights and peace education in 1998, 1999 and 2000, the participants expressed a need for governments to become more engaged in the process of introducing human rights and peace education into the formal and non-formal education systems.

Objectives

The organisation of the workshop is a response to this recommendation. The aim of the workshop is to train participants in policies and methodologies for introducing human rights and a culture of peace education into national EFA action plans and basic education programmes.

To support member states in achieving their aim, UNESCO is offering a workshop with the following objectives, to: