Child Rights Education Toolkit: Rooting Child Rights in Early Childhood Education, Primary and Secondary Schools

"As you read through this Toolkit, think about how you can share and promote an understanding of the child rights approach with others and how you can apply it to your activities and programming."

This toolkit, developed by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), uses the metaphor of a tree to explore child rights education in the context of school-based initiatives that promote: learning about rights; learning through rights (using rights as an organising principle to transform the culture of learning); and learning for rights (taking action to realise rights) - in an overall context of learning as a right. Objectives of the toolkit are to:

1. strengthen the capacities of project managers in UNICEF National Committees and country offices, as well as other stakeholders, to plan, implement, monitor and evaluate programmes that promote child rights in schools and early childhood education settings;
2. provide an overview and guidance on how to implement and integrate child rights education (CRE) strategically in school curricula, teaching practice, and learning environments;
3. offer examples of CRE initiatives, information, and models for strategic planning, monitoring, and evaluation of programmes and projects; and
4. promote a global approach to CRE within UNICEF.

According to UNICEF, CRE is "teaching and learning about the provisions and principles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the 'child rights approach' - in order to empower both adults and children to take action to advocate for and apply these at the family, school, community, national and global levels....Child rights education seeks:

• to embed the provisions and principles of the Convention and the child rights approach in formal and non-formal learning curricula and learning environments; as well as in the curricula and training of professionals working directly with children, or on issues affecting children;
• to raise awareness of the provisions and principles and the child rights approach through mass media and other channels to reach caregivers, community members and other members of the public;
• to build the capacity of children (as rights-holders) and adults (as duty-bearers) to advocate for and implement these provisions, principles and the child rights approach in daily life and professional practice."

Furthermore, CRE should "take into account that issues such as gender, ethnicity, disability and other factors can intersect, leading to multiple discrimination and multiple barriers to some children's opportunities to learn as a right, about rights, through rights and for rights."

The toolkit can be used in full for an in-depth understanding of the issues, or sections can be read independently for reference on specific topics. It contains a range of practical tools, checklists, mapping exercises, project examples, and evidence of the benefits of high-quality child rights education. For example, using the CRE Tree, the following chapters provide an overview of types of initiatives: Chapter 4: whole school approach (centre of tree); Chapter 5: learning as a right (tree trunk); Chapter 6: learning about rights (branch); Chapter 7: learning through rights (branch); and Chapter 8: learning for rights (branch). These chapters emphasise the importance of systematic and logical connections between these initiatives.

In defining what is meant by CRE and the child rights approach, the toolkit explains the relevance of CRE to UNICEF's mission and the ways in which child rights education can take place in a range of contexts - including with professionals, caregivers, the corporate sector, the media, and children's groups. The audience of this toolkit is therefore intended to be UNICEF National Committees, UNICEF country offices, UN agencies working on CRE, governments, civil society organisations, non-governmental organsations (NGOs), and academic institutions.

This first edition of the toolkit is a provisional release prepared with a focus on experiences in countries with a UNICEF National Committee presence. UNICEF encourages National Committee and UNICEF country office colleagues to pilot the toolkit and to apply its exercises and tools, then send feedback or suggestions to the Child Rights Advocacy and Education Unit, Private Fundraising and Partnerships Division (see contact information, below). These inputs will inform the development of a second and final edition of the toolkit.