Global Citizenship Education for

Learning to Live Together

By Prof. Dr. Arief Rachman, MPd Executive Chairman

Indonesian National Commission for UNESCO Ministry of Education and Culture

The Republic of Indonesia

The world faces global challenges, which require global solutions. These interconnected global challenges call for far-reaching changes in how we think and act for the dignity of fellow human beings. It is not enough for education to produce individuals who can read, write and count. Education must be transformative and bring shared values to life. It must cultivate an active care for the world and for those with whom we share it. Education must also be relevant in answering the big questions of the day. Technological solutions, political regulation or financial instruments alone cannot achieve sustainable development. It requires transforming the way people think and act. Education must fully assume its central role in helping people to forge more just, peaceful, tolerant and inclusive societies. It must give people the understanding, skills and values they need to cooperate in resolving the interconnected challenges of the 21st century. (Global Education First Initiatives)

Why Gl0bal Citizenship Education?

The Aim of Global Citizenship Education

GCE aims to equip learners of all ages with those values, knowledge and skills that are based on and instill respect for human rights, social justice, diversity, gender equality and environmental sustainability and that empower learners to engage and assume active roles both locally and globally and to become proactive citizens for a more just, peaceful, tolerant, inclusive, secure and sustainable world (UNESCO, 2013).

As we enter the twenty –first century, educational processes must generate appropriate forms of learning-how to live together, how to be tolerant, and respectful of diversity and how to respect one another‘s rights and how to build a sustainable future.

The key elements for

responsible Global

Citizenship

Knowledge and

understanding

● Social justice and equity

● Diversity

● Globalization and

interdependence

● Sustainable development

● Peace and conflict

Skills

● Critical thinking

● Ability to argue

effectively

● Ability to challenge

injustice and inequalities

● Respect for people and

things

● Co-operation and conflict

resolution

Values and attitudes

● Sense of identity and self-esteem

● Empathy

● Commitment to social justice

and equity

● Value and respect for diversity

● Concern for the environment

and commitment to sustainable

development

● Belief that people can make a

difference

Challenges of the 21st Century

• The International Commission on Education-Learning the Treasure Within (Delors, 1996) highlighted certain tensions and challenges that are most likely to be faced in the 21st century. Some of the challenges that need deeper thought and consideration to be resolved by ensuring peace and sustainable development and how education could minimize these tensions:

• i) The tension between global and local levels of society. This entails

people to be world citizens without losing their roots. • ii) The tension between the universal and the individual. Culture is

gradually becoming globalize, which offers both promises as well as risks. The risk is of forgetting the unique character of an individual human being, which is associated with the problem of anonymity that is created by contemporary developments.

Challenges of the 21st Century

• iii) The tension between tradition and modernity. How it is possible lo adapt to change without turning our backs on the past? How can autonomy be acquired with the free development of others and how can scientific progress be assimilated? This is the spirit in which the challenges of new information technologies must be met.

• iv) The tension between the need for competition, the

need for cooperation and the need to provide equal opportunities. This is an issue which has been bothering both economic and social policy makers and educational policy planners. Reconciliation between competition, which provides incentives, cooperation, which gives strength, and solidarity, which unites.

Challenges of the 21st Century

• v) The tension between extraordinary expansion of knowledge and human being's capacity to assimilate.

• vi) The tension between spiritual and material. It is the primary task of education to encourage each and every person to act in accordance with their traditions and convictions, while paying full respect to pluralism. The survival of humanity depends thereon.

The Role and Contribution of Education in Confronting These Challenges

• Education plays a leading role in the formation and development of the human and social resources of a nation. The objective of education is to prepare generations to stand the tests and mature in life, to inspire their sense of affirming national and social characteristics. It is through education that we can bring about personal development and build relationships among individuals, communities and nations, and that we can mutually assure our welfare.

• Education contributes to the enhancement of friendly relations among

countries on the basis of respect for the principles of equality and self-determination, implementation of appropriate measures aimed at enhancing world peace and attainment of international cooperation in dealing with global issues in economic, social, cultural or humanistic fields, and the promotion and encouragement of respect for the fundamental freedom of all human beings without racial, gender, linguistic or religious discrimination

Global Education First Initiative

• Officially announced in 2012

• Led by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

3 Priority Areas

1) Put Every Child in School

2) Improve the Quality of Education

3) Foster Global Citizenship

Competencies of GCE in interacting with Multicultural Community

To be able to interact in the multicultural community the following competencies should be acquired:

• Personal Competences

• Interpersonal Competences

• Intercultural Competences

• Global Competences

Competences for Personal Development

• Awareness of one's own values, and of their foundation in the socio-cultural patterns of one's natural family, community, and nation.

• Consciousness that one's own perspectives are grounded in culturally determined assumptions, conventions, expectations, and so forth.

• Ability to adopt a culturally relative point of view with respect to the evaluation of issues and individuals.

• Ability to monitor and appropriately modify one's behavior in response to changing social and cultural contexts of activity.

Competences for Interpersonal Development

• Awareness of one's own strengths and weaknesses in interpersonal interaction, and progress toward reducing the weaknesses.

• Commitment to seeking and maintaining successful relationships with others who are culturally different.

• Sensitivity to the verbal and nonverbal behavior of others, and increased ability to evaluate and adapt to varying behavioral styles.

• Ability to communicate successfully, verbally and nonverbalty, with nationals from one's host country.

• Capacity for empathetic interpersonal relations.

Competences for Intercultural Development

• Understanding of concepts such as "cultural relativism," "contrast culture," "deep culture," "culture shock."

• Awareness of the organizing patterns of one's home culture, and increased ability to analyze those patterns non evaluatively.

• Awareness of the organizing patterns of one's host culture; and increased ability to explain those patterns as a host national world.

• Ability to analyze conflicts between culturally different people in terms of `differing values, assumptions, expectations, lifestyles, etc.

Global Competences

• Awareness of global issues that affect both home and host societies, and of linkages between the two societies relative to those issues.

• Understanding of the perspectives of host nationals with respect to global issues of importance to them.

• Ability to relate interdependence, conflict, communication, and change: to one's own experience and to major global issues.

• Perspective consciousness, that is, awareness of the sources and limitations of one's own outlook on life, plus awareness of the outlook of others.

The Essence of Learning to Live Together

Knowledge, values and skills for international, intercultural and community cooperation and peace

• Participate and co-operate with others in increasingly pluralistic, multi-cultural societies

• Develop an understanding of other people and their histories, traditions, beliefs, values and cultures

• Tolerate, respect, welcome, embrace, and even celebrate difference and diversity in people

• Respond constructively to the cultural diversity and economic disparity found around the world

• Be able to cope with situations of tension, exclusion, conflict, and violence.

Basic Learning Needs for Living Together

In order to live together more successfully the following seven basic learning needs should be acquired: 1.Social Participation 2.The ability to become Good Citizens 3.Implementing Human Rights 4.To respect other culture in recognition of cultural

diversity 5.The mastery of languages 6.The mastery of science 7. Access to ICT

Sources

• UNESCO • International Bureau of Education ( IBE) • Asia Pacific Center of Education for International

Understanding ( APCEIU) • Paper Arief Rachman: The Role of Global

Education to Face Challenges Towards Sustainable Future

• Paper Arief Rachman:Building the Culture Peace through Learning to Live Together in Peace and Harmony