April 2004

A United Nations world-wide programme of human rights education from 2005

A resolution proposed by Costa Rica, recommending the adoption of a worldwide programme on human rights education, was approved last 21 April by the member states of the Commission on Human Rights, in Geneva. The Commission “recommends that the Economic Council, at the opening session of 2004, recommend to the Assembly General (of the United Nations) a world-wide programme in the area of human rights, which will begin 1 January 2005 and contain several stages, in order to implement educational programmes in the area of human rights in all sectors.”

Supported by a coalition of NGO’s, including EIP, the proposition presented to the Commission by the Ambassador of Costa Rica was deemed indispensable by several members in light of the slight success achieved by the Decade of human rights education that came to its end this year.

This worldwide programme should come into being with the adoption by the General Assembly of an action plan whose first phase, lasting three years as from 2005, will be centred on primary and secondary school teaching. The Costa Rican resolution indicates that the elaboration of the action plan will be conferred on The United Nations High Commission on Human Rights in collaboration with UNESCO and " other state actors or competent non-governmental organisations ". This action plan would be financed by means of voluntary contributions even though an " appropriate " portion from the UN will be able to be used in the development of the " national capital " of the state members. The plan foresees the expenditure of money to support activities undertaken in particular by non-governmental organisations. Nevertheless the resolution does not specify the range or limit of these expenditures.

These promising developments demand the means and political will to guarantee their realisation on the ground. Let us remember the engagement of countries, during the Jomtien Conference organized by UNESCO in 1990, to assure basic education for all as of the year 2000. One well knows that this promise was not kept, so that the Dakar Forum ten years later had to push back the deadline until 2015.

Human rights education for all presents a substantial challenge. This type of education was one of the principle reasons for founding EIP, in 1967. With other NGO’s, EIP was there at the beginning of the Decade – which was an idea resulting from the UNESCO Malta Conference on Teaching, Information and Documentation regarding human rights. It is therefore particularly concerned by this question.
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References

(UN) Economic and Social Council. Human Rights Commission. “Follow-up of the United Nations Decade for Human Rights Education”. E/CN.4/2004/L.109
http://193.194.138.190/huricane/huricane.nsf/newsroom

UN (2004). Human Rights Commission http://www.ohchr.org/news/

The Website of the Decade on Human Rights: http://www.unhchr.ch/education/main.htm

- UNESCO: in several countries, compulsory education is inconsistent

A report published jointly last 20 April by the International Bureau of Education and the Right to Education Project emphasizes that in several countries, contradictory laws seriously compromise the right of children to education. These laws authorize children to work, to marry or to be held criminally responsible for acts at an age when, paradoxically, they are under an obligation to go to school.

Melchiorre, Angela (2004). " At what age?... are school-children employed, married and taken to court ? ". The Right to Education Project, Second Edition.
http://www.ibe.unesco.org/
http://www.right-to-education.org/

- Time spent at school: world-wide indicators of UNESCO 2004

UNESCO stresses that children spend more time than ever at school everywhere in the world, but there remain substantial differences between countries and regions. The Collection of worldwide data on education reveals that the children of Europe, South America and Oceania spend the most time at school, with an average of more than 12 years of primary and secondary education.

North-American children follow, with slightly more than 11 years, while in Asia children can hope to spend, on average, 9 years at school. In Africa, the average is 7.6 years. The shortest period of education in the world is in Afghanistan, scarcely two years for the 2001 –2002 school year.

The Collection indicates that amongst the most significant differences is the time spent in higher education. For the ten countries with the highest rate of participation, the average number of years that a young person can expect to spend in post-secondary education (including those who will never study) is more than 30 times greater than that of the 10 countries with the lowest rate. In the most impressive countries, an average of more than 2.5 years of education is spent in higher education. This is the case in Argentina, Bermuda, Canada and the United States in the Americas, Israel, Japan and Macao (China) in Asia, Finland, Netherlands, Norway and Spain in Europe and New Zealand in Oceania.

UNESCO (2004). " Global Education Digest. Comparing Education Statistics Across the World" Institute for Statistics, Montréal, 2004
http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php@URL_ID=3467&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html


- The rights of Indigenous children

According to a report of UNICEF’s Innocenti Research Centre, indigenous children are amongst the most vulnerable and marginalized groups in the world. Their rights are often badly protected or even ridiculed, in both rural and urban areas. The problem is found particularly in the following areas: the right of indigenous children to survival and development, health, education which takes into consideration their cultural identity, protection against maltreatment, violence and exploitation, and participation in the decision-making process in questions which concern them.
http://www.unicef-icdc.org/publications/pdf/digest11e.pdf

- " The Alphabet School "

Constructed in the form of an alphabet primer, this book is organized around 26 words which are at the heart of educational questions: [translated from French] Authority, Bureaucracy, Constructivism, Didactic(s), Child-centred, Fatigue, Anger, Shame, Illiteracy, Game, Crash, Laxity, Measure, Level, Objectives, Pedagogy, Quality, Repeating a grade, Knowledge, Transmission, Utopia, Verbiage, Web, X-Files, Yaka, Ill-feeling. Each of these words forms a rubric that identifies the issues and errors in present-day controversies. The work, dedicated to Philip Meirieu, is the result of the work of a group of researchers of the Laboratory of Innovation, Formation and Education (LIFE) of the University of Geneva: Michèle Bolsterli, Danielle Bonneton, Andreea Capitanescu, Monica Gather Thurler, Olivier Maulini, Alain Muller, Philippe Perrenoud, Lorraine Savoie-Zajc and Etiennette Vellas. In the second part of the work, LIFE invited Jean-Pierre Astolfi, François Audigier and Bernard Charlot, the “first readers” of the alphabet primer, to provide their reflections on the current debates. Drawings by Marrigue and Mix&Remix. In French only.
http://www.unige.ch/fapse/SSE/groups/life/livres/alpha/L/LIFE_2003_A.html