Representatives from ministries of education, intergovernmental organizations, multilateral agencies, civil society organizations and research institutions are collaborating in the development of a fellowship program on ethics education.
The purpose of the Ethics Education Fellowship Program is to strengthen the capacity on ethics education in formal educational settings as a key contribution to developing national programs that foster learning to live together through intercultural and interfaith education. The Fellowship Program targets representatives from ministries of education or other government offices from six countries in Africa and Asia, that are interested in ethics education to foster learning to live together and social cohesion in their countries.
By creating a network of formal education institutions and a platform for sharing and building capacity within the ministries of education, the Fellowship Program seeks to promote a sustainable continuation and expansion of ethics education activities in the participating countries.
The partners include Arigatou International, Guerrand-Hermès Foundation for Peace – Global Humanity for Peace Institute, Higher Committee for Human Fraternity, KAICIID International Dialogue Centre, UNESCO Office for Eastern Africa and the UNESCO New Delhi Cluster Office; Indonesia National Commission for UNESCO – Ministry of Education of Indonesia; Kenya National Commission for UNESCO – Ministry of Education of Kenya, and Sri Lanka National Commission for UNESCO – Peace and Reconciliation Unit, Ministry of Education of Sri Lanka.
The project, which is being convened by Arigatou International – Geneva, was kicked off with a partners’ meeting in Geneva, Switzerland on 7 – 8 March 2022. Representatives from each partner organization participated in the meeting, where they had the opportunity to discuss the common vision of the collaboration. A technical team was formed to carry out the action plan of the Fellowship Program and its implementation. It is expected that national consultations will take place in each of the participating countries to assess needs and opportunities, and to define their scope of implementation. The first international capacity building workshop will take place in October this year, followed by national training workshops for educators, and subsequent implementation in schools. A review meeting will take place in 2023 to share experiences, lessons learned and further the project.
At the end of the meeting, there was general excitement about the diverse expertise of the partner organizations as well as the potential to contribute towards the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, notably target 4.7 which aims to support global citizenship education and a culture of peace.
This collaboration was initiated as a follow-up to the Global Symposium, Transforming Education held online on 22-23 November 2021.
We thank our partners for walking with us on this new project. We look ahead to helping promote ethics education into national education policy and programming to collectively contribute to building more peaceful, inclusive, and cohesive societies.