Teacher traininig

Teacher traininig

Teacher Training in Human Rights

The CSHR played a leading role in incorporating Human Rights as a project topic, which was introduced to the school curriculum for the Advanced Level study course, through the curriculum reforms in the year 2000. This achievement was an outcome of a series of discussions held with the National Institute of Education (NIE). Subsequently, the CSHR, together with the NIE, commenced training teachers to facilitate the successful implementation of the new curriculum introduced to schools by the Department of Education. The major area of concern under this training programme is the human rights component.

45 workshops are planned to be held island-wide, of the country, at present. The target is to train 2000 Advanced Level class and subject teachers, covering all secondary schools. The programme is expected to conclude in a few months.

Training 1 teacher per school, as we have done, was an immediate measure that had to be taken in view of the fact that the teachers had to be made aware of the curriculum reforms that took place. Since the projects have to continue at secondary school level, we feel that training one teacher per school is not effective in the long-run. The CSHR, therefore, aims to teach Human Rights to the Teacher Training Colleges and Colleges of Education with a long term objective. It is necessary to continue this training programme for several more years, if the Human Rights Projects in schools are to be carried out. Another phase of training, covering all secondary schools and training another batch of teachers is necessary.

Human Rights Programme for Colleges of Education

The CSHR has several major achievements: the network of school and community centres established throughout the island, and the inclusion of Human Rights as a subject in the secondary and tertiary levels of education. Through its many years of experience in teaching Human Rights to school teachers, the CSHR since the year 2000, enabled Human Rights to be introduced as an optional project topic at the Advanced Level.

In addition to Human Rights education at secondary school level, the CSHR strongly feels the need to further expand Human Rights education to cover all teachers, instead of selected groups. Therefore, the CSHR reaches out to the Colleges of Education where a larger number of teachers can be targeted for Human Rights education at a given time.