EENET asia Newsletters :Fourth issue June 2007 Contents

Guest Editorial: The Rights-Based Approach to Education

Felisa Tibbitts

EENET Asia has invited Felisa Tibbitts - director HREA [Human Rights Education Associates] - to write a guest editorial about rights-based approaches (RBA) to education. Inclusive education is a key aspect of a RBA, while Child Friendly Schools (CFS) actually try to implement the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in and through education. To be able to use a RBA we need to know more about human rights and child rights, as well as the implications for educational thinking, planning, and evaluation. It forces us to ask questions such as: What rights are violated and why? Who is not getting educated - where are they, and why are they excluded? Who should do what to protect, promote and fulfil the right to education? Whose capacity, in what, needs to be developed to ensure the right to education? Who has to do what to ensure this right and how can partnerships assist in this process?

Legally speaking, the right to education is referenced in numerous United Nations and human rights documents including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Article 14) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (Articles 28 and 29). Other key declarations, general comments and documents have expanded on the right to education, including the World Declaration on Education for All (Articles I, III, IV, VI, VII), the Dakar Framework for Action, and Education for All.

In the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 28 defines education as a right and Article 29 comments that education should assist the child in developing her or his “personality, talents and mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential.” It seems indisputable that the receipt of a basic education is fundamental to the enjoyment of a range of other human rights. Each child requires a basic education in order to grow up with full development of personality, economic security, and the ability to participate in the cultural life of the community.

Another purpose of schools, according to the Convention, is to develop respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. Certainly, to truly understand and promote human rights, one has to live them out in relation to others. This involves not only learning about human rights, but also to live in and through human rights. Thus a human rights-based approach to schooling includes the opportunity to learn about and practice human rights values and framework in the classroom.

This curricular and pedagogical framework for human rights education has, expanded over the last few years to what is now called a rights-based approach to schooling in general. The human rights-based approach aspires to include the following characteristics, taken from a framework developed by UNICEF.

• Recognizes the rights of every child.
• Sees the whole child in a broad context. The staff is concerned about what happens to children before they enter the school system (in terms of health, for example) and once they are back home.
• Is child-centered, meaning that there is an emphasis on the psycho-social well being of the child.
• Is gender sensitive and girl-friendly. Staff is focused on reducing constraints to gender equity, eliminating gender stereotypes and promoting achievement of both girls and boys.
• Promotes quality learning outcomes. Students are encouraged to think critically, ask questions, express their opinions, and master basic skills.
• Provides education based on the reality of children’s lives. The students have unique identities and prior experiences in the school system, their community and families, which can be taken into account by teachers in order to promote student learning and development.
• Acts to ensure inclusion, respect and equality of opportunity for all children. Stereotyping, exclusion and discrimination are not tolerated.
• Promotes student rights and responsibilities within the school environment as well as activism within their community at large.
• Enhances teacher capacity, morale, commitment and status by ensuring that the teachers have sufficient training, recognition and compensation.
• Is family focused. The staff attempt to work with and strengthen families, helping children, parents and teachers to establish collaborative partnerships.

These are abstractions, but they are also an organizing framework that the educator can apply to her or his own school. These principles can also be questions that we can use in evaluating a particular practice in the school. Is our discipline policy child-centered? Does it enhance student rights and responsibilities? Are there sufficient opportunities for student participation in the school? Is this participation meaningful and student-led? I challenge the reader (and myself) to take a few moments to apply the principles of the rights-based approach to education to our own work.

Principle 1. Express linkages to rights
Questions for us:
Are our educational efforts linked expressively to human rights? Do these efforts include the full range of human rights? Do the human rights that are explored in depth have genuine relevance for needs and issues in our communities, or can these connections be made? Are we willing to move beyond our personal “zone of comfort” in linking our work to human rights values?

Principle 2. Accountability
Do those of us who are government representatives or are employed by the state see ourselves as accountable for ensuring education for human rights? In what ways are we accountable? How can children and their guardians ensure such accountability?

Principle 3. Empowerment and participation
Let us think for a moment of those we feel responsible towards in terms of guaranteeing education for human rights. Have we incorporated the ideas of all those who are affected by our policies and activities? Who is absent during our decision-making meetings who has a stake in our conversation? If they are not here, or not involved in conversations back home, how can we bring them to the table? How can we facilitate their points of view on the when, how, who and what of education for democracy and human rights?

Principle 4. Non-discrimination and attention to vulnerable groups
Finally, and in relation to the last point, who are the groups that are least likely at the present time to benefit from our educational programming, and how can we help to ensure their participation? The very groups that have their human rights denied on a daily basis – the marginalized, the vulnerable, the discriminated against – are the ones who will benefit most from our educational efforts. How can we identify them, reach out to them, and create educational programs that are genuinely meaningful for them?

Human rights in schools is not merely about education in the classroom, but a way of life in the school. This approach calls us to not only look at the goals and outcomes of our work but how the work itself is organized and carried out according to human rights principles. This is not something created out of the good will of a few teachers. It is a commitment from leadership and a critical mass of teachers in the schools. There are increasing examples of school-wide approaches to human rights implementation across the world but we need to increase these numbers!

Mrs. Felisa Tibbitts is director and co-founder of Human Rights Education Associates [HREA], an international non-governmental organisation dedicated to education and learning about human rights (www.hrea.org). She can be reached via email: ftibbitts@hrea.org or post: HREA - US Office, PO Box 382396, Cambridge, MA 02238 USA

EENET asia Newsletters : Fourth issue June 2007 Contents