Teaching of Human rights to be introduced in schools

Education experts and officials of the National Commission on Human Right and Freedoms are discussing in Mbalmayo on a strategy to generalise the teaching of Human Rights in Primary and Secondary Schools in Cameroon.

The two day workshop also serves as a forum to evaluate the impact of human rights education in 80 pilot schools nationwide where the training was experimented and make recommendations.

The Representative of the Chairman of the national commission for human rights and freedoms, Ekoam née Mebiame Tangomo said schools are widely believed to reflect the society, thus the need to educate youths in the universal culture of human rights that promote human dignity, tolerance, equity and peace.

The Representative of the Ministry of Basic Education, said human rights education has always part of the education curricular since the year 2000 following the prescriptions of the 1998 law laying down guidelines for education in Cameroon.

She however noted that after the teaching of human rights in 50 pilot primary schools, five from each region, recommendations of the current session will lead to Human rights educations being fully integrated in to the school curricular as part of citizenship training during the process of the curriculum reforms.

The representative of the Ministry of Secondary Education also indicated that in addition to pilot teaching in 30 secondary schools, three per region, Human rights is currently taught nationwide in form and form two. He expressed the optimism that the recommendations to workshop will lead to the introduction of human rights education at all the levels of secondary education.

The evaluation meeting comes two years after the end of the pilot phase for the training of human rights in primary and secondary schools and the production of pedagogic manuals for the teaching of human rights in primary and secondary schools, Universities, Higher and vocational training institutions (government and private), and programs for armed forces and police.