Human Rights Best Practices in Schools: SUHAKAM Program
Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (SUHAKAM)I

n line with the United Nations World Programme for Human Rights
Education, the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (suhakam)
made human rights education in primary to tertiary levels of education one of its priorities. By collaborating with different government agencies and private entities, suhakam aims to increase knowledge on humanrights as well as participation of stakeholders especially the policymakers
and members of various pressure groups in making the importance of human rights well understood and ingrained in the education system.
This is a report on the schools’ experiences with the Amalan Terbaik
Hak Asasi Manusia (atham) or the Human Rights Best Practices in Schools(hrbps) program of suhakam. This article examines the concept and stagesof implementation of this program (until 2013) and presents the results of astudy on its effectiveness. The study examined the participation, implementation, challenges and future plans of the five initial participating schools
under the program.
Human Rights Best Practices in School Program
In order to carry out the vision of suhakam of nurturning and exposing
children to human rights at an early stage, the involvement of the Ministryof Education (moe), schools, students and parents is necessary. In line with
this, suhakam adopted the hrbps program in 2009.
With the cooperation of moe, this program was initially carried out
by five secondary schools. The schools were expected to integrate humanrights education effectively into their school systems to benefit the daily
lives of students.
To simplify the implementation process, the program was integrated
into four areas including school management, curriculum, co-curriculumand student affairs.

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Objectives of the Program
The hrbps program has the following objectives:
i. To encourage students and members of the school to be attentive
and take necessary steps to practice human rights;
ii. To develop a culture of respect and responsibility in relation to human rights and to practice this culture on a daily basis;iii. To increase understanding on human rights for the benefit ofeveryone;iv. To encourage students and teachers to pay attention to humanrights aspects when planning and carrying out activities at school;
v. To share experiences about human rights practice in school andthe local community; andvi. To strengthen the relationship between students regardless of race,
religion or gender.
Participation and Activities
The program started in 2009 with five secondary schools in the states of
Selangor, Perak, Negeri Sembilan and Malacca. Later in 2011 the number increased to seventeen primary, secondary, rural and interior schools. In 2013,
based on the success of the program, the moe decided to include a further
one hundred twenty-three schools into the program, or at least one schoolin every district in Malaysia.
Realizing that the current education system may be overburdened withthe creation of new projects, involvement in the program was either throughnew projects or existing activities that are strengthened and expanded toinclude human rights elements.
School projects must include the following components:
a. Provide human rights awareness to students;
b. Strengthen ties and improve interaction among students regardlessof race, religion or gender;c. Develop and increase knowledge of human rights and child rights
through the activities being carried out;d. Develop a school culture which practices and values human rights;
ande. Set an example for other schools to follow.

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The participating schools decide on the projects they would implement under the hrbps program. Each participating school must refer to human rights materials including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights(udhr), Convention on Rights of the Child (crc) and other documents
deemed appropriate by the school.
The Human Rights-Friendly Schools Project
Suhakam supports school projects that adhere to the objectives of the
hrbps program. It promotes, for example, the human rights-friendly school
concept and the whole school approach as bases of school projects.
The Human Rights-Friendly Schools project seeks:a. To promote the whole-school approach in the integration of human rights into the school system;b. To demonstrate that the approach is valid and effective globallyand to create replicable models which will act as an inspiration toother schools and as a form of advocacy to governments.
Many schools that adopt the whole-school approach to human rights
take as their foundational text either the undhr or the crc. Secondary
schools may find it more appropriate to take the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights as their foundational text, since some of their students may
no longer be children in the legal sense (under the age of eighteen years);
many students of secondary-school age are aspiring adults.
What is the ‘whole-school approach’ to human rights?
A “human rights-friendly” school is a school that supports human rights. It
entails the creation of an environment and a community in which humanrights are taught, learned, practised, respected and promoted. This means
ensuring that human rights are present in all major areas of school life.
The goal of the whole-school approach is to create a rights-respecting
school environment, with members of school communities who are knowledgeable about and dedicated to the promotion of human rights, and withindividuals who have not only the knowledge but also the values, skills andexperience as effective activists on human rights issues. In short, it promotes a culture of human rights. For purposes of the project, the major ar-

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eas of school life into which human rights should be integrated under thewhole school approach are:a. Curriculum;b. Extracurricular activities and school environment;c. School governance;d. Student affairs.
In the curriculum, human rights are incorporated into themes, issues,
perspectives and approaches in existing subjects and units. Subjects andunits found to be particularly appropriate to human rights discussion aresocial sciences courses such as History, Economics, Geography, Literature,
Languages, Arts, Civics and Citizenship.
In the extracurricular areas and school environment, schools often
have more freedom and flexibility in developing activities than in integrating human rights into the school curriculum. Extracurricular activities can
include establishment of human rights club; organizing of festivals (humanrights festival, human rights film festival, human rights visual and dramatic
arts festival); holding of commemorations or other events to mark specificinternational or national days related to human rights; campaigns against
bullying, harassment or violence in the school or the wider community; development of safe-school program; undertaking child-friendly school activities, adoption of social service program with human rights focus for the surrounding community; and implementation of training program for students
on campaigning and activism. The list is endless. The goal is not to do them
all but to devise a realistic strategy of integrating human rights into areas ofthe school system.
In school governance, a chief concern is that not all stakeholders in theschool community have a say in the decision-making process. In this area,
opportunities can often be found in reviewing ways of managing the schoolwith the support of the parent-teachers association or how school meetings
are conducted. These activities can often provide opportunities to cultivate
a culture of trust, respect and shared responsibility in the school community. Another area under the heading of school governance is the school
policies on inclusion and integration, equality, diversity, anti-racism, antibullying, recruitment, enrolment, poverty and the disadvantaged, gender,
the environment and healthy eating, and other issues.

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In student affairs, quite often the key question is how to promote an
atmosphere of respect and tolerance. A concrete measure is to make school
and class charters or code of conduct through a participatory process so that
all feel bound by a document that they helped make. An important aspect
to consider here is how matters of discipline are to be addressed. Again,
the ideal is that both staff and students agree on the rules and feel equally
responsible for upholding them. In a human rights context, the ideal form of
discipline is self-discipline, and a key means of promoting that is involving
all community members in creating the rules by which they have to abide.
HRBPS Program Implementation Phases
The hrbps program is implemented in several phases as shown in Table 1.
Table 1. Program Implementation Phases
Phase

Objective

Activity

Phase 1

Program introduction

Workshop to explain the project to the school Principals and Coordinators

Phase 2

Monitoring

Planning and consultation at the school level

Phase 3

Monitoring

Guidance and consultation

Phase 4

Evaluation

Assessment of projects in all the schools

Study of HRBPS Program Implementation
To support the development of the program, suhakam commissioned
Sultan Idris Education University (upsi) to conduct a scientific study on theeffectiveness of the program. The study started in May 2011 and was completed in October 2011. It used a mixed-method sequential exploratory design (Creswell, 2009) in soliciting qualitative and quantitative data. Both thequalitative and quantitative phases were connected sequentially as the itemsin the questionnaires were mainly based on the qualitative results collected
at the first phase of the study.
In the qualitative research method, one hundred three respondents
comprising of principals, senior assistants, hrbps coordinators, as well asteachers and students, both involved and not involved in the planning andimplementation of the hrbps program, were interviewed using a semi-

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structured interview protocols. Observations and documents were also
analyzed during the qualitative data collection. In the quantitative researchmethod, seven hundred ninety-eight respondents, namely one hundred forty eight teachers (including school principals, senior assistants) and six hundred fifty students participated in the survey, using questionnaires. It should
be noted that not all respondents who were interviewed responded to thequestionnaires and that majority of the respondents (namely the teachers
and the students) in the questionnaires were not involved in the planningand implementation of the hrbps program. Nonetheless their views, together with those who were involved in the hrbps program, are relevant inproviding useful information on the school experiences with the hrbps program, and the future directions of the hrbps program in creating a cultureof human rights practices in the school system on long-term basis.
The qualitative data were analyzed and categorized for common
themes while the quantitative data were analyzed using the spss software.
The qualitative and quantitative data were then consolidated. StrengthWeakness-Opportunities-Threats (swot) analysis was used to summarize
the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the program, and aBest Known Model (bkm) on the hrbps program in Malaysian schools was
proposed. For purpose of confidentiality, the names of the five schools are
not mentioned in this report.
Summary of Findings and Recommendations
Experiences with the hrbps program as perceived by the teachers and students in the five schools were collectively summarized in an attempt to formulate recommendations for the development of the program. Their views
were expressed in terms of the importance of the hrbps program objectives,
participation, school’s intention on the program, challenges of the program,ways to overcome the challenges, ways in implementing the program, benefits, future plans of the program, and human rights education practices inother countries. It must be stressed that the recommendations in this study
have taken into consideration the limitations of the study and the possibility of the hrbps program being implemented in settings with similar local
context.

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Findings
The study has the following findings:
1.

2.

3.

Most teachers, school administrators (principals and senior assistants), and the students agreed that all the hrbps objectives were
important. However, they indicated greater preference to instillingthe importance of mutual respect, and strengthening relationshipand interaction among students regardless of their race, religion
and gender compared to the other hrbps objectives. As to thehrbps objectives on the integration of human rights practices, they
showed greater preference to the integration of the program in the
co-curriculum activities and school environment compared to integration in the class sessions and the local community. As boththe teachers and the students generally agreed that all the hrbps
objectives were important, it is recommended that all the hrbps
objectives be retained.
The study found gaps in the dissemination of information on the
hrbps program to the schools prior to their participation, and to
all the teachers and the students in the participating schools. The
study indicated that the teachers’ main sources of information onhuman rights and the hrbps program were the local media and theinternet, while the students’ main source of information was theirteachers. It was also observed that the information on the program
were displayed in school bulletin boards or specially assigned areasin the school compound. In this context, it is recommended that
more information and publicity on the hrbps program be provided
via the local media and internet to all schools and teachers, andthat more information on human rights continue to be displayed inbulletin boards, along the school corridor, and in specially assigned
locations in the school compound.
As the schools, particularly the school principals, agreed to participate in the program, the strong support and commitment by theschool principals were important in ensuring the implementationof the hrbps program in the schools. The important leadership roleby the principals in all the schools indicated that the program was
implemented as planned. In this regard, it is recommended that the
principals continue to play active and leading role in disseminat-

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ing information on the hrbps program and human rights to all theteachers and the students and at the same time be role models inhuman rights practices in their schools.
The teachers perceived that the hrbps program could be integrated into the school curriculum and co-curricular activities toimprove student behavior, particularly discipline, and the school
environment while the students perceived that the integration
should be through a human rights education subject. Both theteachers and the students agreed that human rights could be integrated in the existing curriculum, co-curriculum activities andschool environment. It is acknowledged that all the schools practice human rights through the existing curriculum, co-curriculum,and school environment prior to their participation in the hrbps
program. However, all the schools prior to their participation in the
hrbps program did not overtly implement current practices that
subscribe to the udhr and the crc principles.
In this context, it is recommended that the whole-school approach practices that subscribe to the udhr and crc principles beovertly adopted by schools in the curriculum (in the school subjects), co-curriculum and school environment. It is further recommended that human rights education specifically on the udhr andcrc be directly integrated across all the school subjects and theschool environment.
As it was acknowledged by the schools that a lot of improvement
could be done to increase human rights awareness in the school if
all the different stakeholders worked together, it is further recommended that all stakeholders, both internal and external, cooperateand collaborate to improve human rights conditions in the schools.
In implementing the hrbps program, the schools conducted special hrbps activities or projects with the support of suhakam.
Although the respondents seemed to have neutral response regarding special activities in implementing the hrbps program, they acknowledged that these specific hrbps activities had increased theirawareness and knowledge on human rights as well as their responsibilities in human rights practices. Since the schools are at thestage of familiarizing themselves with human rights while trying tointegrate human rights in their school systems based on the udhr

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7.

8.

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and the crc principles, it is recommended that special hrbps activities or projects be continued. Such purposeful and value-added
projects that subscribe to the udhr and crc principles have not
only created greater awareness and knowledge on human rights,
but have benefited both the teachers and the students. It is hopedthat the good human rights practices be entrenched in the schools
on a long-term basis.
The findings also indicated that the teachers and the students who
were directly involved in the planning and implementation of the
hrbps program activities seemed to have benefited more than
the teachers and the students who were not directly involved in
the program. This is explained by the responsibilities given to theformer to lead in election of prefects, and organize co-curricularand special activities on the hrbps program. Most of the teachers
and the students seemed to have neutral responses to the question
about the hrbps program being a burden to their daily tasks andresponsibilities in the school. In this context, it is recommended
that the schools increase the number of teachers and students inthe planning and implementation of the hrbps program and encourage all teachers and students to practise human rights in their
daily tasks and responsibilities.
The teachers and the students perceived that the most agreeable
method in overcoming the barriers to the implementation of the
hrbps program is the involvement of all school stakeholders, namely, students, teachers and administrators, in program implementation. On this basis, it is recommended that every effort be made by
the school authorities to promote a culture of human rights to allteachers and students in their relationship among themselves andto others on daily basis.
The teachers and the students were of the opinion that there was alack of integration of human rights in the class sessions that could
impede the whole-school approach in the integration of humanrights in the schools. In this context, it is recommended that good
human rights practices be given due consideration inside the classroom. Since the schools implemented the hrbps program outside
the classroom and also due to the time constraint, the study was
not able to include classroom observation regarding human rights

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H u m a n R i g h t s E d u c at i o n i n A s i a - Pa c i f i cpractices in the class. In overcoming this limitation of the study,
it is further recommended that a research study be conducted to
identify the issues and problems in integrating human rights in theclass environment.
9. Several constraints or weaknesses in the hrbps program implementation were identified, namely, the time factor, the lack ofknowledge and skills on imparting human rights among teachers and students, and the lack of support and commitment of allteachers and students in implementing the program. However, theteachers and the students were agreeable in collaborating with suhakam, local communities and non-governmental organizations(ngos) to promote human rights in their schools. In addition, theyagreed that the practices of human rights education in other countries were important to Malaysia as well. In acknowledging thatsuch constraints could be barriers to successful implementation of
the program, it is recommended that the teachers and the students
be given more knowledge and skills on human rights as well as opportunities to work in collaboration with various agencies, such as
suhakam, local communities, and ngos pertaining to avocationof human rights. Workshops, seminars, and in-house training on
human rights, particularly pertaining to the udhr and crc, can be
conducted by various agencies for the school principals and administrators, teachers and students. In addition, human rights education practices in other countries should be made available to provide ideas and lessons on the implementation of hrbps program in
Malaysian schools.
10. The best known model (bkm) on the hrbps program needs to take
into consideration the experiences of the schools that participatedin the program, specifically in relation to the program’s strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threats (swot). The schools acknowledged that the direct involvement of suhakam at the schoollevel ensured that the program was successfully implemented in
the schools. In this regard, it is recommended that suhakam continues its collaboration and direct involvement in program implementation at school level until such time when the schools havegained confidence to do on their own the integration of humanrights practices in their school systems.

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11. Although the results indicated initial apprehension on the partof the teachers about the hrbps program as “extra burden” and“stressful,” both the teachers and the students perceived that the
program might not be a burden to their daily tasks and responsibilities. Furthermore, they acknowledged that the program wasimportant and should be implemented immediately by all and in all
schools. There was also a suggestion that a special hrbps unit be
set up at the department of education at either state or district levelto have one common or consensus hrbps program for all. Such asuggestion would perhaps ensure that the schools could depend on
the relevant authorities for support and commitment on long-termbasis in establishing a culture of human rights in the schools. It isthus recommended that due to the importance of implementing
the hrbps program by all and in all schools, a special hrbps unit
be set up by the state education department or district education
office to support the development of a culture of human rights inthe schools on long-term basis.
Conclusions of the Study
In conclusion, the study suggests that the best known model (bkm) for thehrbps program should be the whole-school approach or holistic integrationof human rights in the existing school system. This is in line with the objectives of the hrbps program. Good human rights practices can be integrated
in the curriculum, co-curricular activities, policies on students’ behavior
and discipline, provisions of learning facilities and services, and learning
environment. Since the schools still needed to become familiar with humanrights while trying to integrate human rights in their schools based on theudhr and crc principles, it is recommended that special hrbps activities
or projects be continued.
Suhakam’s continuing collaboration and direct involvement in the
program would still be needed until such time when schools are confident
in integrating human rights practices on daily basis in the school system.
The suggestion that the Ministry of Education give serious consideration to
the setting up of a special unit at the department of education at either state
or district level in order to have a common hrbps program for all would ensure that the schools can depend on the relevant authorities for support and116

H u m a n R i g h t s E d u c at i o n i n A s i a - Pa c i f i ccommitment on long-term basis in establishing a culture of human rights
in the schools.
In sum, drawing from the findings in this study, the Best Known Model(bkm) on the hrbps program is one on holistic integration of human rights
in the existing curriculum, co-curricular activities, school discipline andlearning environment. This whole-school approach in human rights practices in the schools should be overtly implemented as intended in the hrbps
program.
Conclusion
The hrbps program was well received by the participating schools. It hashelped many schools in handling problems such as truancy, poor academic
results and problems on discipline. In short, the whole-school approachof suhakam’s hrbps program and the United Nations World Programmefor Human Rights Education seemed to be acceptable by the schools in
Malaysia. This program is still at its infant stage and suhakam would pushharder for the implementation of the program in every school in Malaysia inpursuit of its aim of nurturing knowledge and practice on human rights at
the early stage of children’s development.
Reference
Creswell, John W. 2009. Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed
Methods Approaches (3rd ed.). Los Angeles: Sage Publications, Inc.