Human Rights Training in Primary and Middle Schools Substantially Improved
Starting in 2009, primary and middle school textbooks will contain more substantial material on human rights. The National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) has examined the revised curricular guidelines to be applied to textbooks that are being developed for gradual distribution from 2009 under new primary and middle school curriculums.
The NHRCK will analyze newly published textbooks with respect to textbook writing standards, etc. and request the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development to modify any portions that may be problematic from the perspective of human rights.
So far, the NHRCK has analyzed textbooks, developed draft human rights education courses for primary and middle schools, reviewed human rights aspects of modified draft curriculums, and requested the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development to complement the drafts in continued consultation with the ministry in order to introduce human rights education in regular curriculums for primary and middle schools.
As a result, the concept of human rights education was introduced in the new curriculums for primary and middle schools for the first time, as announced in the previous year. This enabled commencement of human rights education from the primary school level.
Under the revised curriculums, human rights education, which is implemented from early grades in primary schools to high schools, is incorporated into various subjects including Korean, ethics, social studies, and English.
The curriculums are designed to implement focused human rights education in ethics and social studies in particular and to execute such education in curricular activities as well as extracurricular and creative optional activities. This means that the country is implementing the UN recommendation as part of follow-up measures to the UN Decade for Human Rights Education, i.e. introducing human rights education in regular curriculums for primary and middle schools.
Given that individuals form their values in their primary and middle school years, introducing human rights education in regular curriculums should be very effective in creating a human rights-friendly culture in schools.
Textbooks are essential to the curriculums for primary and middle schools, but existing textbooks are not very human rights-friendly. For instance, such terms as ‘normal people’ or ‘ordinary people’ were used in contrast to 'people with disabilities'. They also often state that merely having sympathy and providing help to vulnerable social groups including the disabled and homeless are enough to promote human rights. In illustrated pictures, only males were shown as major icons or examples, giving rise to gender-discriminative perceptions among students.
