FW: [hr-education] Re: Third Phase WPHRE: Advancing implementation and consolidating the work done

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Cαrlα Corrêα

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May 1, 2014, 8:14:43 AM5/1/14

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Colegas e amigo(a)s compartilhado as importantes experiências de educação em e para os Direitos Humanos abaixo.

Carla Corrêa

Instituto Zero a Seis - Primeira Infância e Cultura de Paz

www.zeroaseis.org.br

To: carlar...@hotmail.com
Subject: [hr-education] Re: Third Phase WPHRE: Advancing implementation and consolidating the work done
Date: Thu, 1 May 2014 01:08:02 +0000
From: hr-edu...@lists.hrea.org

Dear friends and colleagues,
As far as the Japanese government is concerned there is a very limited promotion of the WPHRE. Government ministries, in general, do not have a clear initiative for delivering the WPHRE that is known to the Japanese public. Their human rights education-related activities are not well-publicized. Reports are sent by the national government to the UN treaty monitoring bodies, but not disseminated well to the local audience. What can probably be considered to be WPHRE promotional activities are those of local governments in Japan, and these local governments tend to come from a particular part of the country (western region of Japan) where human rights education has been supported in one way or another under the rubric of anti-discrimination education.
Japan enacted the Law on the Promotion of Human Rights Education and Human Rights Awareness-Raising in 2000. Then in 2002 it adopted the Basic Plan for the Promotion of Human Rights Education and Human Rights Awareness-Raising (Basic Plan). The government started issuing an annual report on human rights education (through its White Paper on Human Rights Education and Human Rights Awareness) afterward. See Mariko Akuzawa, “Whither Institutionalized Human Rights Education? Review of the Japanese Experience,” in Human Rights Education in Asian Schools, Volume X for a general discussion of the Japanese experience up to 2007.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) has held two surveys on human rights education in the Japanese school system (2008 and 2011). It also started in 2012 to provide information on “good practices” in human rights education in the school system. Different schools all over Japan provided good practices reports regarding several topics: general experiences; subjects in the curriculum; balance between attitude, skills and knowledge that should lead to action, specific issues, participatory method; integrated school system (primary and secondary school levels combined in one school), and school-community links. Visit these pages of the MEXT website (in Japanese).
There was also a government advisory body on education (Panel on the Promotion of Human Rights Education in Schools) that included the discussion on human rights education in preparing its recommendations regarding improvement on teaching and learning processes and materials.
These initiatives (from the White Papers to other initiatives of MEXT) have been criticized by educators, however. One major criticism is about the definition of human rights education. The recent reform of the formal education curriculum has emphasized moral education, and thus some of the good experiences being mentioned relate more to moral education than to human rights education. The emphasis on moral education has worried human rights educators as a way of minimizing the impact of human rights education (or sidelining it).
The Japanese government reports other human rights education initiatives to the UN human rights treaty monitoring bodies (such as the 2012 periodic report to the Human Rights Committee and the 2013 period report to the Committee on the Elimination All Forms of Racial Discrimination. These reports mention the second phase of the WPHRE and cite some activities undertaken.
These government initiatives as reported to the UN human rights treaty monitoring bodies, however, do not seem to have been properly assessed. Thus there is no authoritative basis for knowing how these initiatives have been implemented and what impact have resulted.
The local governments have an important role in human rights education. There are local ordinances and programs on specific rights such as child rights (see Akito Kita, “Current State of Child Rights Education in Japanese Schools,” Human Rights Education in Asia-Pacific, Volume Two).
But there are also problems such as the reduction of budget in local governments. Previously, local governments have been supporting community or social education in the form of the establishment and operation of local centers (Kominkan) for such purpose, which provide educational activities including those on human rights-related education. Ironically, an internationally-supported program (Lifelong Learning) became the favorite educational concept and contributed to the sidelining of social education initiatives (See Yoko Arai, Social Education and Human Rights, Human Rights Education in Asia-Pacific, Volume Four).
There are individual and group initiatives on evaluating human rights education in the school system. See Bettina Rabe’s article for an example of evaluation of specific area of human rights education (textbooks) (Human Rights Education in Asia-Pacific, Volume Two). Teachers’ organizations conduct their own assessment of human rights education such as the one in Osaka (see Shinichi Hayashi, Evaluating Human Rights Education in Osaka Senior Secondary Schools in the same volume 2 of Human Rights Education in Asia-Pacific as earlier cited).
In order to capture learning from these programmes there is a need for continuing collection of documentations on human rights education made by governments (national and local), research institutes (particularly those focusing on rights education – from general human rights education to specific rights education), human rights centers (such as HURIGHTS OSAKA), teachers’ organizations, and NGOs. A system of organizing such information (such as done by HREA) would help make this happen.
However, fostering dialogue, if it is meant to be effective, has to be done at the local level by the local institutions. National level dialogue is also good, but resources and political will of national government agencies that support human rights education should exist.
Jeff Plantilla
Hurights Osaka

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