The NHRCK (AHN, Kyong-Whan, Chairperson) began an educational training program for elementary and middle school teachers during the summer vacation in order to promote learning environment in schools that are in tune with human rights’.
This educational training program will have over 200 participants from 6 regions from all over Korea, including Seoul, Kwangju, Incheon, Ulsan, Gyeongbuk, and Jeonbuk. For this training program, NHRCK selected several human rights and other educational agencies to introduce and serve as an alternative education system, which started to develop Educational Programs for Teachers to Enhance Sensitivity to Human Rights from last May.
Starting with the opening of Inha University’s Human Rights and Public Interest Law Center on July 28, Sungkonghoe University’s Center for Human Rights and Peace opened on July 30th. In addition, on August 5th, Kwangju City’s Jeonnam University Human Rights and Public Interest Law Center will run a program followed by Ulsan University’s Center for Legal Research, Jeonbuk University’s, Legal Research Institute, and Youngnam University’s Center for Human Rights Research that will each run 3 days training program starting on August 11th.
There are minor differences in the educational programs in different alterative education systems. However, they share the same purpose and cover similar topics such as improving the understanding of human rights issues, understanding the rights of social minorities, improving sensitivity to human rights issues through role plays, finding ways to promote human rights in one’s school, and changing the school environment to be human rights-friendly. These programs will help strengthen the teacher’s capacity to run human rights education and contribute to increase awareness of human rights through promoting a learning environment that is human rights-friendly.
