The project on Democratic and Human Rights Education in Croatian Primary Schools is an example of how human rights education (HRE) can become an integrating force that brings together practicing teachers, NGOs activists, university professors and government experts from all levels on sharing and promoting the idea of human dignity through learning, training and teaching. It is also an example of a successful and long-lasting cooperation between HREA and number of Croatian institutions and organisations, including the government that have brought important changes to Croatian education policy and practice.
It was initiated as the follow-up to the National Programme for Human Rights and Civic Education Project which was carried out from 1998 to 1999 with a joint support from HREA, the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Croatian National Human Rights Education Committee and the Croatian Ministry of Education and Sport. The former project set up a series of in-service teacher training seminars on the implementation of a comprehensive National Human Rights Education Programme throughout the country. The trainers made a group of national and international human rights experts, including university professors, civil activists and experienced national advisors who worked together in the framework of the National Programme. Their main target was not only to prepare teachers from different school levels to include human rights, democratic citizenship, intercultural understanding and peace into their classrooms but to provide them with knowledge and skills of multipliers that empower them for introducing further changes into their schools and local community. Therefore, the focus was as much on learning about the key principles of promoting human rights through education as it was on acquiring skills of facilitating and promoting critical understanding, problem-solving, project-work, participation and team-work among students and adults. Those teachers who were successful in implementing the changes were after a year or so invited to join the group of trainers with a view to disseminate their good practices and exchange their experience with other teachers, especially with those who needed more practical training or direct assistance to be able to remove the obstacles to human rights promotion in their classrooms or schools.
An additional target of the seminars was, in the one hand, an in situ development of teaching materials for preschool teachers and, in the other hand, an in situ testing of a primary school teachers’ manual which was originally prepared in about the same time by the UNESCO/Netherlands’ sponsored project on Peace and Human Rights for Croatian Primary Schools.
In order to make a better use of teacher materials that had been developed and/or tested at the seminars, HREA, in 2002, supported the idea of a follow-up project aiming at the finalisation, printing and dissemination of preschool and primary school human rights education manuals. Following the approval of the Croatian Ministry of Education and Sport, the task was entrusted to the Research and Training Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Citizenship of the Faculty of Philosophy University of Zagreb that had been several months earlier established on the initiative of some members of the former UNESCO/Netherlands and HREA projects. The founding principles of the Centre focused on strengthening the implementation of human rights in the national education system through research and training, as well as through development and dissemination of learning and teaching materials at seminars and through the use of ICT.
After number of changes in both the approach and the content, by the end of 2003 the Centre published the preschool manual Living and learning the rights as the first of the kind in Croatia. It was developed as a practical guide for preschool teachers and other relevant professionals, as well as to parents, in facilitating preschool children’s learning for self-awareness, rights and responsibilities, equality and justice in the context of a democratic and culturally plural society.
The central idea of the manual is that human rights are the pillars of the quality of life at all levels and that learning for human dignity, respect for others and care for the community should start as early as possible. The key in that process is proper understanding of the child’s and parents’ rights and responsibilities as well as of the responsibilities of educational institutions in creating the climate of mutual respect, growth and development for every child. These ideas are further elaborated through the analysis of aims, objectives, contents and methods of the National Preschool Human Rights Education Programme. The protection and promotion of the rights of the child at this age, in particular his or her personal dignity and equality, survival, development, participation and protection, are conceptually organised around children’s needs and linked to institutional context, climate and teacher roles as the key determinant of children’s well-being. Apart form theoretical explanations, the manual contains number of guided activities a teacher may use in his or her work with children as well as number of workshop materials and examples of good practice that serve as resources for further informal training and self-evaluation of teachers and parents in this field.
The Primary School Manual which was originally prepared in the UNESCO/Netherlands project in 1999 has been significantly expanded in this period as the result of consultation with teachers, teacher trainers and experts from different disciplines. Namely, majority of them argued that teachers need more background information on human rights, democracy, civil society etc. in order to be able to efficiently introduce human rights education into their classroom practice. Referring to their experience with other resources they said they needed a manual in which the examples of students’ activities would be more balanced with information on international, legal, moral, cultural and other aspects of human rights protection and promotion, including the obstacles to such processes, so as to be equipped with firm argumentation on why students’ activities are a necessity and not a fashionable attempt to change the school in today’s world.
With that in mind, a number of new topics have been added to the original text, mainly with the view to provide background information for teachers’ work with students. The new topics include moral and legal dimensions of human rights; the difference between human and individual rights, human and constitutional rights, universal and particular rights, etc.; the relation between rights, responsibilities and duties; historical and theoretical foundations for human rights; international, regional and national systems of human rights protection and promotion, including the role of civil society; the link between the right to education and the enjoyment of human rights, as well as a survey of human rights education and related programmes, including the situation in Croatia in this field.
Second part of the manual contains the primary school human rights education programme. It comprises five key areas: Discovering the Self; The World Around; Living Together, From Conflict to Peace; and One World, with related information on objectives, methods and evaluation strategies for each area.
Both manuals are expected to be extensively used as resource materials at national and regional teacher training seminars as well as in pre-service teacher training. In order to improve their use, the Research and Training Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Citizenship will seek assistance in launching a new project on monitoring and evaluating the use of primary school manual in the context of implementing the National Human Rights Education Programme.
Vedrana Spajic-Vrkas is director of the Research and Training Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Citizenship, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Zagreb (Croatia).