Human Rights Training Program for the Education Sector Staff

Dr. Martin Beck - Resident Representative of the Konrad-Adenauer-StiftungAmman Jordan

Khalil Radwan - Regional Specialist for Human Rights Educationand Children Rights for UNRWA

Topics of the third workshop day:

Education in human rights and citizenship

Where are we?

What is our purpose?

How to reach our goals?

Evaluation of the third workshop day

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

Mona El Alami - Jordan Center for Civic Education Studies

Dr. Martin Beck - Resident Representative of the Konrad-Adenauer-StiftungAmman Jordan

Amara Benromdhane - Chief Supervisor for General SecondaryEducation in Civic Education, Tunisia

Topics of the fourth workshop day:

Integration of human rights and citizenship concepts in the curriculum:

Means of integration

Presentation of actual achievements in the integration of human rights andcitizenship concepts in curricula

Working groups: elementary education and intermediate/secondary education

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

Mona El Alami - Jordan Center for Civic Education Studies

Dr. Martin Beck - Resident Representative of the Konrad-Adenauer-StiftungAmman Jordan

Amara Benromdhane - Chief Supervisor for General SecondaryEducation in Civic Education, Tunisia

Dr. Saleh Al Kalayleh - Director of the Curricula Department at theMinistry of Education

Revision of materials prepared by the participants in the previous days

Presentation and discussion of projects prepared by the participants

Drawing up of a brief document by the participants to be adopted as a preliminaryreference on how to integrate human rights and citizenship concepts into school curricula

Evaluation of the workshop and delivery of certificates of participation

2. Objective

Today the modern conception of human andcitizen rights conceives not only the knowledgeof these rights. Everyone endowedwith these rights has to actively exercise,defend, respect, implement and promotethem. Human and citizen rights have to bedeeply embedded into the consciousness ofthe citizens and are therefore important notonly in a societal but also in an academiccontext.

Human rights education means in this perspectivethat it is an interdisciplinary educationand formation effort of the school toteach students in human and citizen rightsas basic principles and value systems of society.During the five workshop days participantsand experts discussed on how to integratehuman rights concepts in school curricula bytraining curricula writers, school administratorsand teachers to acquire the necessaryskills to teach and promote democratic participationamong the school generation.

The workshop session focused also on enhancingthe human rights culture amongthe ministry of education, the privateschools, the employees of the Ministry ofEducation and private schools educatorsthrough imparting knowledge of humanrights concepts and providing them withskills of the techniques of integrating humanrights concepts in school curricula.

3. Details

JCCES, as an implementing partner of civic education materials for the elementary andthe secondary levels since 2003, proposedtogether with KAS Amman a capacity buildingprogram that focused on human rightseducation for youth. The goal of the programwas to support the ministry of educationand private schools educators in theirefforts to develop, and implement, a humanrights education program that gives studentsthe tools to be active, responsiblecitizens with knowledge of and respect foruniversal human rights. This capacity buildingworkshop aimed at enhancing a properawareness of civic and political education inJordan and represented a step forward towardsrealizing tangible progress in the developmentof human rights education in thekingdom.

Mr. Khalil Radwan and Mr. Amara Benromdhanewere the trainers for the workshopwhich trained 30 curricula writers,school administrators and teachers on theconcepts of human rights and their integrationin school curricula.

First workshop day

The workshop started with a short welcomingspeech by Dr. Martin Beck, ResidentRepresentative of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, who emphasized the importance ofhuman rights and its teachings saying thatthe idea of human rights has basicallychanged the fate of mankind. He added thatthe main idea of human rights was inventedin Europe in the era of Enlightenment in the18th century. However, the fact that theidea of human rights was invented inEurope does not mean that human rightsare a European idea in essence. On the contrary,human rights are universal ratherthan European or Western. Human rightsapply to the Arab world and other parts ofthe world the same way as to Westerncountries.

Mona Al Alami, executive director ofJCCES, gave a brief introduction about theCenter. She added that the issue of humanrights education has gained a lot of intereston the international level due to its centralrole in enhancing human rights culture.She underlined that the capacity building ofthe workshop was expected to represent astep forward towards realizing tangible progressin the development of human rightseducation in the kingdom.

During the workshop Khalil Radwan emphasizedthat the human rights are basic tohumanity. They apply to all people everywhere.Because of this universal aspect, anunderstanding of human rights is an importantpart of our individual status as humanbeings and of our collective status as membersof the global community of humankind.Mr. Radwan talked about the definition ofhuman rights. From his point of view thoserights are inherent in all human beings.They allow us to develop fully and use ourhuman qualities, our intelligence, our talentsand our conscience and to satisfy ourspiritual and other needs.

Regarding to Mr. Radwan, human rightsare the rights a person has simply becausehe or she is a human being. Human rightsare held by everyone equally, universally,and forever and include civil, political, economic,social, and cultural rights.The rights are related to the values of societyand have their origins in the world'sgreat religions and philosophies.Value systems can vary in detail betweenone society and another but the fundamentalideas are very similar, concepts of justiceand human dignity are at the heart ofthese values.

Mr. Radwan considered that the humanrights are derived from the inherent dignityof the human person and are defined internationally,nationally and locally by variouslaw making bodies.

Second workshop day

During the second workshop day on March3rd, 2010, Mr. Radwan gave the participantsa short introduction about humanrights education. He defined the humanrights education as a life-long process bywhich people at all levels of developmentand in all strata of society learn respect forthe dignity of others and the means andmethods of ensuring that respect in all societies.The Universal Declaration of Human Rightswas founded in 1948. The UDHR wasadopted by the 56 member nations of theUN General Assembly on December 10th,1948. December 10th is now celebratedaround the world as International HumanRights Day. There are now 188 memberstates in the United Nations that, uponmembership, agreed to educate their citizensabout the principles of the UDHR. Mostof these countries have incorporated theprinciples of the UDHR into their constitutions.The Declaration consists of a preambleand 30 articles, setting forth the humanrights and fundamental freedoms to whichall men and women, everywhere in theworld, are entitled, without any discrimination.Mr. Radwan explained the five categoriesof human rights: citizen rights suchas the right to live and the prohibition ofslavery, political rights as the freedom ofopinion and expression, economic rights asthe right to work, the protection against unemployment,social rights as the right toan adequate standard of living and lastlycultural rights such as the right to education.

In his last session Mr. Radwan gave theparticipants all the information about theInternational Bill of Human Rights. It consistsof the Universal Declaration of HumanRights declared in 1948, the InternationalCovenant on Civil and Political Rights andthe International Covenant on Economic,Social and Cultural Rights, both adopted byUN General Assembly in 1966.

Third workshop day

The workshop started with a review of Jordan'sexperience in human rights educationand citizenship in order to build on existingguidelines. This was followed by a presentationby one of the employees of the CurriculumDepartment in the Ministry of Educationwho gave a presentation to the participantsabout the present role of the Ministry ofEducation in human rights education. Thefirst day proceeded with a discussion andsharing experiences between the participantsand the trainer Mr. Amara Benromdhane.

The trainer then created fourgroups in order to work on a project thatexamined the role of the Ministry of Education,students, teachers and the communityin human rights and citizenship education.Mr. Benromdhane emphasized the importanceof human rights education since itstrengthens the respect for human rightsand fundamental freedoms, it supports thefull development of the human personalityand the sense of dignity, and it promotesthe understanding, respect, gender equality,and friendship among all nations, indigenouspeoples and racial, national, ethnic,religious and linguistic groups. Furthermore,the human rights education helpsall people to participate effectively in a freesociety and also the furtherance of the activitiesof the United Nations for the maintenanceof peace.

He then started a lively discussion with theparticipants on the concepts of integrationof human rights in school curricula, the obstaclesthat faces this integration and thepossible solutions. This was done as a groupwork. The first group chose the obstaclesthat the teachers face, the second groupchose the curriculum designer and the thirdgroup chose the curriculum writer. The participantscontinued to work in groups on thedifferent means, methods and lesson plansthat could be used to integrate humanrights in their daily lessons choosing differentcategories stated in the Convention onthe Rights of the Child. The groups chosethe right to an appropriate environment forchildren, the right to equality and the rightto identity. A fourth group worked on drawingup a brief document to be adopted as apreliminary reference on how to integratehuman rights and citizenship concepts intoschool curricula.

Fourth workshop day

In this session Mr. Benromdhane talkedabout the various roles of education. Firstand foremost education should be directedto the full development of the human personalityand to the strengthening of respectfor human rights and fundamental freedoms.Human rights education providespeople with information about humanrights, it helps people feeling the importanceof human rights and internalizing humanrights values. It also teaches them howto integrate human rights values into dailylife.

Fifth workshop day

During the last workshop day the participantsworked on finishing their projects.This was followed by a presentation and adiscussion about the different projects andabout the preliminary document whichshould be a base for future work in thisfield. At the end of the workshop all participantswere supplied with printed documentscontaining the workshop content as well asother relevant material such as the fieldstudy performed in Jordan in 2003 on humanrights education, different magazinearticles and a copy of the full text of theConvention on the Rights of the Child issuedby UNICEF.

Dr. Saleh Al Kalayleh, director of the CurriculaDepartment at the Ministry of Education,together with Dr. Martin Beck attendedthe closing ceremony and deliveredcertificates signed by KAS Amman andJCCES to the participants.

4. Conclusion

The workshop familiarized the participantswith human rights concepts and the maininternational conventions for human rights.It enabled them to gain the necessary skillsand techniques of integrating human rightsconcepts in school curricula and helpedthem to integrate the human rights in primaryand secondary school curricula.The workshop was a success in terms ofproviding the participants with knowledgeand skills of human rights and democraticparticipation among school students bytraining them.

All participants commented positively onthe quality of training, the efficiency of thetrainers and the efforts put in organizingthis workshop. The participants valued theopen discussions that led to sharing experiencesbetween qualified educators fromdifferent education sectors. This exposedthem to different views and methods andenriched their experiences. They thankedJCCES and KAS and strongly requested athird part of the workshop to include theintegration of human rights in the differentsubjects of the curriculum as they felt thatthis area needs a lot of work with the ministryof education’s curricula writers.