Strengthening Human Rights Education in the National School Curriculum

Australian College of Educators National Conference, University of Technology, Sydney

Speech by the Hon Catherine Branson QC

14 July 2011

Check against delivery

I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, the Gadigal peoples of the Eora nation and pay my respects to their elders, both past and present.

I thank Margaret Clark and the Australian College of Educators for the invitation to address you all this afternoon. It is a great honour and a pleasure to speak to you today.

Introduction

I would like to speak this afternoon about the importance of strengthening human rights education in the national school curriculum – for students, for the school community and for society as a whole. I would also like to propose how I think we can achieve meaningful human rights education in the curriculum.

I value education immensely. I value it not only for the intrinsic value of exposure to new ideas, concepts and knowledge. But because I, like you, know that education is the means through which people can achieve better life outcomes for themselves and those around them.^[1] In this respect, not only is education a right in itself, but it can also be seen as a facilitative right, through which the myriad of other human rights might, or might not be enjoyed, depending on the individual’s access to education. The theme of this conference, ‘equity in education’, is therefore a critical one to ensure all young people, and in turn all of society, are able to benefit from the right to education.

I also value education for the role it can play in fostering values, attitudes and behaviours that promote a more inclusive and rights respecting society.

I believe human rights education is a vehicle for fostering strong human rights values in our community and creating a more equal, respectful and inclusive society. This is because of its capacity to impart information and develop skills; to change attitudes and build empathy; and to motivate a sense of agency and participation – active citizenship, if you like. All of these can help to dispel stereotypes and encourage mutual understanding and respect.

While we should be proud that Australia is a generally free and prosperous nation in which most people enjoy the protection of their human rights, there are still many areas in which we fall short of protecting human rights for everyone, everywhere, every day. For example, the right to education itself is not sufficiently realised for many people in Australia. Children with disability, children from low income backgrounds and Indigenous children have significantly lower levels of access to education from preschool to tertiary levels.^[2]

Beyond education we know that there are many groups of people who are not able to fully enjoy many of their human rights and who face persistent discrimination.

Yet, on the whole, we find it hard to identify with, and therefore feel empathy for, those whom we consider different; those from whose experiences we remain distant and seemingly powerless to change. We see this perhaps most starkly in the highly politicised and divisive debates around asylum seekers in Australia. Yet as the SBS documentary ‘Go Back to Where You Came From’ so vividly illustrated, when we are able to put a face to the experience of others and ‘put ourselves in their shoes’ then we can empathise. Exposure to the lived experiences of asylum seekers changed perceptions of participants and the audience in a way that the words of public figures or politicians could not. This then is a form of human rights education in action.

Human rights education is a core part of the work of the Australian Human Rights Commission. Our human rights education work is diverse. With priority focuses on building respect for rights and addressing bullying, including cyber-bullying, we conduct training, hold public forums and produce human rights education resources. For example, our Face the Facts^[3] publication aims to debunk myths and stereotypes about Indigenous Australians, migrants, asylum seekers and refugees. It details current research that shows, for example, no evidence of a causal connection between crime and ethnicity. In reality, the crime rate of the overseas born population has been lower overall than that of the Australian born population, with Face the Facts revealing that unemployment, education, socio-economic disadvantage and lack of access to services have more bearing on crime rates than ethnicity. When people are exposed to the facts in this way, we can then proceed to more fruitful debates about how to address the particular challenges before us.

Human rights education therefore, is critical to building a human rights respecting culture in Australia where the rights of all people are understood and respected.

I believe the current development of a national school curriculum is a unique opportunity to ensure that all young people in Australia learn about their rights and the rights of others and in turn contribute to the process of creating a human rights respecting culture in Australia.

What does formal human rights education look like?

Human rights education is not only about providing knowledge on the basic freedoms and protections to which all people are entitled and the mechanisms that protect them, but also about imparting the skills needed to promote, defend and apply human rights in daily life.

Human rights are best protected when they are embedded in the way we think and therefore in the ways we act. As was rightly observed as long ago the 1940’s, if we don’t believe in human rights, then no law, no charter, no parliament and no court will save them.^[4]

In 1948 the United Nations affirmed in the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) that respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms are to be advanced through teaching and education.^[5] The central importance of human rights education as a tool for advancing protection and enjoyment of rights in Australia was also recognised in the first recommendation arising from the National Human Rights Consultation in Australia in 2009.^[6]

There are three major elements to human rights education: ^[7]

• first, the acquisition of knowledge and skills,
• second, the development of respectful values and attitudes and changed behaviour, and
• third, the motivation of social action and empowerment of active citizenship.

Equipped with human rights knowledge and skills, and motivated by human rights values and attitudes, students can find the confidence to lay claim to their own rights, as well as to defend the rights of others.

As I have outlined, human rights education can come in many forms, however, critical to all successful human rights education is its ability to connect with its audience. As human rights educators, it is our job to use practical examples and activities that instil an understanding of what human rights values mean in students’ daily lives – to make human rights a part of their own lived experience.

What is the value of human rights education in the national school Curriculum?

I believe human rights education has direct and immediate benefits for students, for the school environment, as well as enormous long-term benefit for society as a whole.

This audience knows well that our mindset, attitudes and behaviours are set early in life and these are heavily influenced by our environment, including our school education. This demands that we engage children in discussion around their rights and the rights of others at a very young age.

Human rights education in the national curriculum provides an opportunity to impart human rights knowledge, skills, values and attitudes to all young people in Australia.

Assisting young people to incorporate human rights values into their daily lives is a concrete way to prevent bullying and discrimination, to promote inclusion and respect for diversity. Human rights provide a valuable framework for good inter-personal relations and for making informed and proportionate decisions.

Research in Australian schools shows that where education around values is embedded in the content and pedagogy of the classroom, there is evidence of improved student engagement with schooling, better learning outcomes, and enhanced social and emotional wellbeing.^[8] As a result of values education, schools have reported increased empathy, tolerance and respect, and increased student confidence to address bullying.^[9] Schools have also reported a reduction in disciplinary measures, an increase in school attendance, and positive shifts in classroom and playground relationships as well as relationships at home.^[10]

In the United Kingdom, UNICEF has been pioneering a program called the ‘Rights Respecting Schools Awards’ (Program).^[11] The Program awards schools that have incorporated the Convention on the Rights of the Child^[12] into their planning, practice and ethos. This includes teaching and learning about the Convention, creating a rights-respecting culture and empowering children to become active citizens. In doing so, it has improved self-esteem, behaviour and relationships; reduced bullying and discrimination; increased discussion and engaged children in planning and reviewing their own learning. Moreover, it is has provided schools with a framework of common values.

In turn, we know that these attitudinal and behavioural changes will be carried forward by students into their adult life and will benefit society as a whole. Through the effective delivery of human rights education in schools, young people will learn the skills and achieve the competence necessary for effective citizenship and for participating in and promoting a democratic and human rights-based culture that we will all benefit from.

So what does this tell us about how best to include human rights in the Curriculum?

Clearly, human rights education needs to go well beyond ‘civics and citizenship’ education. If we want students to acquire more than just knowledge about human rights and to actually adopt values and attitudes that reflect human rights then human rights education needs to be a cross-cutting and visible element of the curriculum that relates to and provides an interpretative framework for students’ daily lives.

At present the draft national curriculum contains very few references to human rights. The Australian Human Rights Commission proposes the following complementary approaches to strengthening human rights education in the national curriculum:

• The inclusion of a specific general capability or cross-curriculum priority focused on human rights and Australian values

The inclusion of a general capability or a cross-curriculum priority focused on understanding and applying human rights and Australian values. This will ensure that human rights feature as a visible and central priority across the Curriculum. It will also highlight the close relationship between human rights and Australian values such as justice, equality, a fair go and democracy.

In the absence of a specific general capability or cross-curriculum priority focused on human rights, at a very minimum, the Commission believes that a focus on human rights and Australian values needs to be integrated into existing general capabilities, cross-curriculum priorities and across all learning areas.

• The integration of human rights principles and values in the descriptions of relevant existing general capabilities and cross-curriculum priorities

There are several general capabilities that resonate with human rights values and learning, namely ‘ethical understanding’, ‘personal and social competence’ and ‘inter-cultural understanding’. The existing cross-curriculum priorities also reflect important areas of focus for developing an understanding of human rights. The Commission believes it is important for human rights to be expressly integrated within these. This will ensure the relevance and importance of human rights to students’ learning is highlighted throughout the Curriculum – both as a body of knowledge and as values and principles to guide attitudes and behaviours.

• The inclusion of relevant human rights issues and examples in each learning area

While human rights and Australian values will be touched on in some learning areas including civics and citizenship, history and geography, this alone is insufficient to impart an understanding of human rights and Australian values as a cornerstone of our social fabric and national ethos. It is important that the relevance of human rights and Australian values to all learning areas is reinforced – from using mathematics as a lens to address questions around equity and fairness, to using English to encourage an appreciation of the diversity of cultures in Australia and globally. As I have already suggested, it is through the use of examples and case studies that students are able to empathise and understand human rights, and incorporate human rights attitudes into their daily lives.

The Commission’s position and previous submissions on human rights in the curriculum can be found on our website.

Conclusion

I would like to conclude by emphasising that effective human rights education cannot be achieved through the simple introduction of human rights content in an already over-burdened curriculum.^[13] Instead, it requires that the environment within which students learn reflects human rights values. It is when human rights values are embedded in content and in pedagogy that human rights can translate into our attitudes, behaviours and actions.^[14]The Commission will be working towards supporting teachers and schools to achieve this through developing resources and materials and exploring ways in which we can support professional development programs for teachers focused on human rights. We hope to partner with human rights educators, like you, to make human rights education in the curriculum a vivid reality.

^[1] Australian Council of Social Service, A Fair Go for All Australians: International Comparisons, 2007: 10 Essentials (2007) 18 (viewed 13 May 2011).
^[2] NGO Submission to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Freedom, Respect Equality, Dignity: Action, (2008).
^[3] Australian Human Rights Commission, Face the Facts (2008), p 34. At http://humanrights.gov.au/racial_discrimination/face_facts/index.html (viewed 13 May 2011). 
^[4] Billings Learned Hand, ‘The Spirit of Liberty’, Speech delivered in New York on 21 May 1944.
^[5] Universal Declaration of Human Rights, GA Resolution 217A(III), UN Doc A/810 (1948), preamble (viewed 13 May 2011).
^[6] National Human Rights Consultation Report, (2009) p 353.
^[7] United Nations Human Rights Council, Draft plan of action for the second phase (2010-2014) of the World Programme for Human Rights Education, A/HRC/15/28, 27 July 2010 (viewed 13 May 2011).
^[8] Education Services Australia, Giving Voice to the Impacts of Values Education: The Final Report of the Values in Action Schools Project, October 2010.
^[9] Education Services Australia, Giving Voice to the Impacts of Values Education: The Final Report of the Values in Action Schools Project, October 2010; Department of Education, Science and Training, National Values Education Forum Report, April 2004; Australian Curriculum Studies Association, 2007 National Values Education Forum - Values Education in Practice: Making Connections, May 2007. See also research from primary schools in the United States of America, A Furco, Unpacking the Nature of Values Education in Primary School Settings (Speech delivered at the National Values in Education Forum in May 2007) as quoted in J McLeod and R Reynolds ‘Exposing Issues: Exploring Values. Education for human rights in the classroom’ in C Newell and B Offord Activating Human Rights in Education: Exploration, Innovation and Transformation (2008) p 41.
^[10] See note 10.
^[11] UNICEF United Kingdom, Rights Respecting Schools (viewed 13 May 2011).
^[12] International Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989 (viewed 13 May 2011).
^[13] C Newell and B Offord ‘Introduction’ in Activating Human Rights in Education: Exploration, Innovation and Transformation (2008) p 12. 
^[14] Equitas International Centre for Human Rights Education Play it Fair: Human Rights Education Resource for Children, (2008) (viewed 13 May 2011).