The Role of Law and Legal Knowledge for a transformative human rights education: addressing violations of children’s right in formal education.

Date: 12th February 2019
Category: Civil Rights and Freedoms, Access to appropriate information, Awareness-raising, General measures of implementation, Incorporation, General principles

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The Human Rights Education Review Report has published a report identifying a number of violations of the human rights of children in school settings.  

The premise of the article states that for the Human Rights Education (HRE) to be truly transformative and achieve its main goal of educating children on their rights, it needs to identify ongoing violations, study them, and help children identify where their rights are being violated. The report is categorized under five themes:  access to school; the curriculum; testing and assessment; discipline; and respect for children’s views. 

The report argues that for the Human Rights Education to achieve its core purpose, it must incorporate ‘negative’ lived experiences of injustice, exclusion or discrimination as a way to build children’s capacity and develop the legal knowledge and skills that will enable them to identify and challenge breaches of their own rights and the rights of others. Also, it must enable children to identify and challenge breaches of rights in school and elsewhere. To do so, knowledge of law, both domestic and international, has a fundamental role to play. Read full review here