EDUCATION FOR HUMAN RIGHTS DEMOCRACY IN SOUTHERNAFRICA: A PILOT PROJECT IN MOZAMBIQUE, NAMIBIA ANDZIMBABWE

MELANIA RUKANDA

Human rights and democracy are issues, which are complex and (within eachcountry) are closely related to a country’s historical and ideological evolu-tion. These issues are perceived differently in new or emerging democraciesthan in the so-called old democracies. Architects of human rights educationprogrammes need to understand and consider these dynamics when designinga human rights education programme.

In new or emerging democracies, governments preoccupied with consoli-dating their newly found and in most cases hard-won independence mayperceive elements who hold alternative views with some degree of intoler-ance. While they may accept the notion of human rights as contained ininternational instruments acceptable, they are more likely to perceive the oblig-ations expected of them as states parties inconsistent with their own priori-ties or even as manipulation by some rich countries (Augier 1994, Citizen)Their support for human rights education might consequently just be rhetor-ical.

One of the lessons learnt from the Southern African pilot project is thatstakeholders should share a common understanding of the aims of humanrights education and appreciate the need for this education. It should be clearto the decision-makers, the implementers and the beneficiaries (both primaryand secondary) as to what human rights education seeks to achieve for theindividual as well as for society as a whole so as to pre-empt fears of possiblenegative outcomes. The values (including attitudes) and skills which humanrights education seeks learners to develop should be debated and some con-sensus arrived at. This debate should be undertaken within the framework ofhuman rights (as universal values) as given in international instrumentsand guided by the principles of indivisibility, interdependence, and inalien-ability. Notwithstanding this framework, some categories of rights will bemore relevant than others in a given country depending on its historical andideological evolution. It is useful to build on those values that make moresense to the target group.

In order for human rights education to be effective, it should adopt as broadand comprehensive a strategy as possible to target the formal and informal(the hidden) curricula of institutions of education as well as the wider societyso that efforts in both directions reinforce each other and a culture in whichhuman rights are known, promoted and protected permeates the whole ofsociety. In particular institutions of governance and law enforcing agents at

International Review of Education – Internationale Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft– Revue Internationale de l’Education 48(3–4): 285–286, 2002. 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

all levels need to be targeted for human rights education so that they becomeexemplary in this area.

Consistent with the principles of indivisibility, interdependence and inalien-ability of human rights, countries which are serious about human rights edu-cation need to be seen to be addressing in concrete terms all the categoriesof human rights including those which are not legally enforceable. This, wefind, is a big challenge facing the countries currently piloting the projectEducation for Human Rights and Democracy in Southern Africa.

As human rights education deals more with the affective domain, requiringattitudinal change, sometimes touching on the raw nerve of custom andtradition, human rights educators need to accept that they will need to usemethods of training and education which help the learners to confront andinterrogate some of the beliefs, attitudes and values that they had taken forgranted and which may have negative human rights implications.

References

Augier, Phillipe. 1994. Education for Democracy. Paris: UNESCO.

Augier, Phillipe. 1994. The Sovereign Citizen. Paris: UNESCO.

Amnesty International (undated). Siniko: Towards a Human rights Culture in Africa.London: Amnesty International.

Osler, Audrey, and Starkey, Hugh. 1996. Teacher Education and Human Rights.London: David Fulton Publishers.

The author

Melania C. Rukanda holds an M.Ed. in curriculum studies and an M.Sc. in publicadministration. For the latter she wrote an assessment of the impact of economic struc-tural adjustment on access and equity in secondary school education in Zimbabwe.She worked for a period in the Zimbabwe Ministry of Education, where shebecame Chief Education Officer in charge of Standards Control and ProfessionalAdministration. Currently she is working as a consultant on the project Education forHuman Rights and Democracy in Southern Africa having worked there full time assub-regional adviser from 1998 to January 2002. In this capacity she led country teamsin Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe in developing a strategy and instructionalmaterials to mainstream human rights, democracy and related issues into the formalschool curricula.

Contact address: Melania C. Rukanda, 10 Wellington Avenue, Belvedere, Harare,Zimbabwe.

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