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Commonwealth Secretariat press release

Commonwealth Publishes Human Rights Materials for Schools

2 March 2000

The Commonwealth Secretariat today publishes two booklets aimed at secondary teachers of human rights and citizenship courses in Commonwealth countries. They are a Curricular Framework of twelve basic human rights concepts related to different articles in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and a Companion Guide for teachers, to assist them in classroom discussion. The materials will, for example, be useful for the Citizenship curriculum coming into force in England and Wales in September 2002.

Prepared by the London Institute of Education, the materials are available free of charge from the Secretariat's Human Rights Unit which, with the Education Programme there, has supported the work at the Institute. Financial support has also come from the UK Department for International Development, the Department of Education, Northern Ireland and the Vancouver-based Commonwealth of Learning.

These booklets are the product of a decade-long Commonwealth Values project of the Institute's International Centre for Intercultural Studies. The Centre conducted surveys of human rights teaching and teenagers' understanding of human rights - revealing wide variations in levels of awareness of, for instance, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in different Commonwealth countries. The materials were finalised after a Commonwealth meeting in Accra in 1998 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, attended by an international group of educators.

The authors of the materials are Richard Bourne, now Head of the Commonwealth Policy Studies Unit, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, and Professor Jagdish Gundara, the Head of the Centre, which this year celebrates its 20th anniversary.

The twelve concepts range from law and the administration of justice to violence, and responsibilities and duties. The teachers' guide has eight chapters on: how to practise rights and responsibilities; the right to education; gender; religion; interculturalism and diversity; rights in a democracy; international instruments and standards; and whether rights change over time.

Copies are being sent to Ministries of Education throughout the 54 countries of the Commonwealth, which has been promoting human rights since the 1991 Harare Commonwealth Declaration. Commonwealth Ministers of Education, due to meet in Canada this November, have supported this project at their last two meetings.

Further details are available from:

Richard Bourne +44 (0) 20 7862 8823
Jagdish Gundara +44 (0) 20 7612 6721
Christine Mulindwa-Matovu +44 (0) 20 7747 6421


Mrs Mulindwa-Matovu is Head of the Human Rights Unit at the Commonwealth Secretariat Copies may be obtained from the
Human Rights Unit,
Marlborough House,
London SW1Y 5HX.

2 March 2000
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