Integration of Human Rights Concepts in the Educational Curricula - Foundation Office Jordan
Event Reports
Event: Regional Workshop
Date/Place: July 9-12th 2011
Hyatt Amman Hotel
Amman, Jordan
Under the Patronage of his Excellency Dr. Tayseer Al Naimi – the Minister of Education
Concept: Ms. Muna Al Alami, Jordan Center for Civic Education
Dr. Martin Beck, KAS Amman
Program Overview
Saturday, Tuesday - July 9-12th 2011
Speeches
Dr. Martin Beck
Resident Representative
Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung
Amman Office-Jordan
Mona Al Alami
Executive Director
Jordan Center for Civic Education (JCCE)
Amman-Jordan
HE Dr. Tayseer Al Naimi
Minister of Education
Amman-Jordan
Amara Benromdahne
Human Rights education expert
Tunis-Tunisia
Abeer Ammouri
Office manager of the Minister of Education
Amman-Jordan
Objective:
Human rights education can play a crucial role in the construction of a universal culture of human rights, inspired by a shared commitment to a human order and a belief that individuals have both the capacity and the responsibility to make a difference. In such an effort, the training of professionals is vital, especially of those professionals who can influence public debate on accountability and governance. Innovative human rights education initiatives, characterized by a commitment to experimental learning and to international and regional cooperation among state and non-state actors, constitute a step in the right direction.
Within this regard, the Jordanian Centre for Civic Education (JCCE), with the cooperation of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, conducted a specialized four-day workshop for a group of educators and professionals from Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Mauritania and Jordan with the aim to raise their awareness and train them on how to implement human rights concepts in the education sector.
From left to right: Mona Al Alami, HE Dr. Tayseer Al Naimi and Dr. Martin Beck
First workshop day
Opening session: Welcome speech
The workshop started with a short welcoming speech by Dr. Martin Beck, Resident Reprehensive of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, who emphasized that human rights is a basic concept which implies that the individual has many rights given by nature, rather than by any authority. He added that it is not a Western but a global concept, even though the Europeans brought this concept into light.
Mona Al Alami, executive director of JCCE, gave a brief introduction about the center. She commended the importance of the regional workshop that brought together participants from nine Arab countries.
Dr. Tayseer Naimi, Jordan’s Minister of Education, emphasized the important role of integrating human rights values in the educational curricula, he also encouraged intercultural dialogue. He added that the Ministry of Education achieved important milestones in integrating human and women rights and citizenship values in the Jordanian education curricula. This is mainly achieved through extracurricular activities such as students’ parliament, debate competitions, clubs, and international organization simulation in schools. Then His Excellency gave examples from the Quran and Sunnah (Fiqh) about some of human rights concepts.
Abeer Ammouri, office manager of the Minister of Education, presented the ministry achievements and challenges. She mentioned the Jordanian Constitution that ensures the provision of the education rights for everybody. Also she mentioned that 12% of the government budget goes currently to schools. Then she presented the Ministry of Education’s achievements:
1)Universalizing basic education, whereas basic education enrollment increased from 89% in 2000 to 96.5% in 2008
2)The expansion of early childhood and pre-school education
3)Elimination of discrimination in the opportunities provided for both sexes.
4)Integration between the formal and informal education
5)Illiteracy reduction by adult education, whereas, the illiteracy rate was reduced from 11% in 2000 to 7.7% in 2008, in 2015 it should be only 5%
In terms of human rights education, the ministry’s achievements are:
1)Integration of human rights concepts in school textbooks
2)Preparation of the Matrix of Human Rights concepts
3)Involvement of seven Jordanian Ministries in the international human rights plan
Amara Benromdahne, regional advisor in human rights and trainer of the workshop, presented at the beginning of the first session his training plan. Then he emphasized that the countries which adopted human rights and democracy concepts create a strong community base which strengthens the economy. He started his training by introducing three dimensions of human rights concepts: existential, historical, and legal.
At the beginning, participants from each country presented the current situation in their countries in terms of human rights integration; also they presented the problems and obstacles regarding each country’s particularities.
Mr. Benromdahne presented different exercises, and then discussed with the participants the human rights concepts which the exercises implied and shows them the different ways of delivering such concepts.
Second workshop day
Amara Benromdahne started with categorizing some of the obstacles facing the education sector on the international level and in the Arab world. International problems are: Citizenship in light of globalization, confusion between the concepts of terrorism, and the right of resistance. Regional problems include limited political changes in the region, the absence of the ideal of human rights, media limitations and restrictions, politicization of religion, and the partnership between family and school. Mr. Benromdahne presented the importance of the role of the school in influencing societies.
The participants were then divided into three different groups and worked on defining the civil, personal, and practical dimensions for teaching human rights. The participants collected the results of the workgroups and discussed the main points.
The trainer asked the three groups to continue their projects on how to produce educational units which include the human rights concepts to the elementary, intermediate and secondary stages, in light of the UN convention on the rights of the child.
Third workshop day
On the third day, the participants displayed and discussed the results of each workgroup. During the rest of the third day, Mr. Amara presented the idea of strategic planning in the field of education, the terms and conditions of a successful plan, and the steps of preparing a national plan in the field of human rights education. Then he asked the participants to build on the results of their group work to prepare their plans.
Fourth workshop day
On the final day, the participants worked on finishing their projects. This was followed by a presentation and a discussion about the different projects. In order to keep the participants connected, and to share their experiences and opinions, a Facebook page was created and will be managed by JCCE. At the end of the workshop all participants were supplied with papers on how to interrelate human rights in education curricula.
Conclusion
The workshop familiarized the participants with human rights education concepts, identified the problems facing human rights education on the international and global level, and provided training on human rights integration in the education curricula.
The workshop was a success in terms of providing the participants with knowledge and skills of integrating human rights within the national educational plans.
All participants commented positively on the quality of the training, the efficiency of the trainer, as well as the organization of the workshop.
The workshop was covered by one of the leading newspapers in Jordan, Al Rai Newspaper, under the link:
http://www.alrai.com/pages.php?news_id=414796
