Children First: Human Rights in Education Curriculum

Khartoum State Ministry of Education intends to introduce human rights education in the schools curricula of basic and secondary education in the next school year.
This was the outcome of a workshop organized by the Ministry in cooperation with Civil Aid NGO (Akhir Lahza Arabic daily, August 9, 2011). The state Minister of Education Mohamed Ahmed Humeida stressed on the importance of the abolition of corporal punishment in schools describing it as violence against students. Schools' directors and teachers should use modern educational methods and tools that attract students to the schools.
Same time, Civil Aid Executive Director Mustafa Osman Abdel Kareem stressed on the importance of human rights education to end human rights violation and build a just society and spread the spirit of tolerance and solidarity among the population. He stressed also on the need for a change in the traditional educational tools.
This is a step from the Khartoum State Ministry of Education that should be highly commended and hope that workshop recommendations will be implemented according to the Minister commitment in the workshop.
This said, we would like to make some suggestion in support of this important initiative.
First, this is the first attempt to introduce human rights education in schools and the University of Bakht El Ruda has valuable studies and initiatives in this regard that can be useful to Khartoum State because there is no need to start from ground zero.
Second, the new mandate of human rights special representative for Sudan is to provide technical assistance in the area of human rights and basic component of his mandate is human rights education. So, the State should try to benefit from this avenue.
Third, and last, there are many national NGOs who have very constructive efforts in the field of human rights education which should be considered and included in this initiative.
Fourth, the State Ministry should seek assistance from the UN specialized agencies like UNICEF, UNFPA and the ILO each within his mandate.
Fifth, there is a need to involve some national and international NGOs working on children rights like the Save the Children (Sweden, Plan Sudan, Sabah), in addition there must be a role for the NCCW (National Council for Child Welfare) on the area of child rights convention and certainly it will be an added value to include the Sudanese education for all network and the Education forum. The call to include these bodies is to produce the best curricula for human rights education in schools.
In the end, we hope every success for this important initiative from the Khartoum State Ministry of Education and Civil Aid NGO.