Experts review Draft Roadmap for integrating Global Citizenship and Liberation History in teaching and learning in Southern Africa
25 experts met on 8 April 2021 to review the Draft Roadmap for integrating Global Citizenship and Liberation History in teaching and learning in Southern Africa. The Draft Roadmap provides guidance on the integration of Global Citizenship Education (GCED) and Southern African Liberation History (SALH) in the region.
The experts commended the draft document and suggested to strengthen particular thematic areas such as the role of women in the liberation history. They recommended both co-curricular activities on GCED and SALH as well as mainstreaming of some topics in the core curricula. They also proposed extending the scope of the Roadmap to earlier levels of education as well as to provide guidance on strengthening GCED and SALH in assessment and teacher education.
The UNESCO Regional Office for Southern Africa, in partnership with the SADC Secretariat is promoting regional integration, social cohesion, and peaceful coexistence in the region, targeting especially youth through the teaching of Southern African Liberation History, which is part of the broader concept of Global Citizenship Education.
UNESCO aims to support Member States in their efforts to provide learners, throughout life, with the knowledge, skills, values, attitudes and behaviours needed to ‘live together’ in increasingly diverse societies, and engage with the world as responsible global citizens.
At a regional meeting on GCED held in Johannesburg, Southern Africa in October 2019, participants recommended UNESCO to “commission a comparative mapping study to review GCED content, practices and articulation in curricula and teacher education and in the region”. As a follow up to this recommendation, UNESCO ROSA in collaboration with the SADC secretariat commissioned a review of national curricula in 13 SADC Member States to determine the level/kind of integration and teaching of GCED issues and values, and of Southern African liberation history, in particular on secondary school level. The study recommended that SADC countries should teach GCED and SALH with a regional perspective which will lead to common goals and values being adopted in the region. As a follow up, UNESCO commissioned a Roadmap for integrating Global Citizenship and Liberation History in teaching in learning in Southern Africa which is what was reviewed at the meeting on 8 April 2021.