[hr-education] Re: Main achievements and obstacles in first half of the Decade

Amnesty International-Slovenia has taken the recommendations on HRE very
seriously and since 1998 we try very hard to incorporate HRE in all levels
of formal education in Slovenia. As the Convention on the Rights of the
Child is specifically mentioned in the Slovene constitution and in the
preface of the National Curriculum we considered that a good sign for our
future work.

So far we were very successfull in putting into actions our HRE national
plan although we haven't received much support from the government and
Slovenia also hasn't established a National Committee for HRE Decade.  
Amnesty International (AI) Slovenia seems to be the only organisation at
present that actually has a national HRE plan and continuously asks other
GOs and NGOs for contributions.

In 1999/2000 we managed to translate "First Steps" HRE manual into Slovene
language. [***Various language versions of First Steps are available
on-line at: http://erc.hrea.org/Library/First_Steps/ , Mod.***] Before the
actual publication we tried it out on several primary, secondary and
post-secondary schools and adjusted it according to the responses of
teachers. After a visit to Slovene Minister of Education and several talks
with various high officials at the Ministry we got their support for our
project and in October 1999 we were allowed to take part at Slovene annual
general meeting of all school directors. We used up the opportunity and
distributed copies of First Steps with a promotional letter so now every
Slovene school has at least four of them. The response was more than
expected - some schools ordered copies for every teacher at school because
they thought First Steps is so useful in classroom.

With permission of Department of Education we were also able to promote
First Steps at regular meetings of professional teachers' boards (civics,
ethics and society) and we hope we will be able to do so also in future.

To ensure that the manual will actually be used and not forgotten in
school libraries we entered a process of approving First Steps as an
official text book for the subject "Ethics and Society" which is taught in
compulsory nine-year schools. The process is done at Slovene Department of
Education and so far we haven't received their definite answer as they are
still waiting for an expert opinion. As many well-known human rights
experts and educators gave beforehand a very positive opinion of it we
hope for the positive answer.

In 2000/01 AI-Slovenia is planning to prepare a professional in-service
training for teachers of civics to introduce HRE as a world trend and
necessity, get them familiar with human rights instruments and especially
to train them how to use Fist Steps effectively in and outside of their
classrooms.

First Steps also became an official textbook for students/teacher-trainees
at Faculty of Pedagogics, University of Maribor. Dr Divjak, an undisputed
authority on HRE in Slovenia, is using it with his students. He is also a
distinguished member of our small HRE co-ordination group that prepares
and carries out all activities concerning HRE in Slovenia.

Apart from activities directly connected with First Steps we also manage
to facilitate a small, but effective network of AI School Groups that
function at schools as extra-curricular club activities and are run by
teachers/mentors. We encourage students to prepare their own HRE material,
do peer-teaching and take part in various actions and events AI-Slovenia
prepares on national or local level.

AI-Slovenia is going to maintain its contacts with various GOs and NGOs
that are interested in HRE and facilitate them with material, information
and in-depth knowledge on HRE in order to raise the awareness that HRE
should become an essential part of the education if we want it to be a
quality education oriented towards democracy and peace.


Alenka Bregant, prof.
AI Slovenia HRE co-ordinator
Ljubljana, Slovenia




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