Global Citizenship Education

UNESCO has taken up the challenge to promote global citizenship through education in view of current trends, events and turmoil in an increasingly globalized and interconnected world. An education that can inculcate respect for human rights, gender equality, social justice and diversity is critical for developing citizens who possess desirable values, knowledge and skills to ensure inclusive, peaceful and sustainable societies.

The (Global Education First Initiative) GEFI has identified five barriers to global citizenship: (i) legacy of the current education system; (ii) outmoded curricula and learning materials; (iii) lack of teacher capacity; (iv) inadequate focus on values; and (v) lack of leadership on global citizenship. With support from the Korean Funds-in-Trust, UNESCO Bangkok is implementing a project on Preparing Teachers for Global Citizenship Education to address some of these barriers, particularly in enhancing the capacity of teachers to transmit appropriate and relevant knowledge and skills about global citizenship, updating outmoded curricula and learning materials, and increasing school leadership to support GCED.

The overall goal of the project is to empower learners to assume active roles in addressing and resolving local and global challenges through GCED. More specifically, the objectives are to:

• Increase knowledge of GCED among teacher educators, teachers and school leaders.
• Enhance capacity of teacher educators and teachers to deliver GCED contents.
• Strengthen school leaders’ capacity in supporting and implementing GCED in their institutions.

Nine pilot countries have been selected as shown below:

• South Asia (Bhutan, India, Sri Lanka)
• Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand)
• East Asia (China, Japan, Republic of Korea)

These countries represent the rich and diverse social, economic, political and cultural landscapes of the region, but at the same time share several similarities and values. Within each sub-region, there are cooperation mechanisms such as the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Plus Three (China, Japan and South Korea), which can provide a general framework and entry points for implementing the project within and among the three sub-regions.