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Human Rights Education in Schools– Project Implementation
Loreto Day School Sealdah

T

he Loreto School-Sealdah joined the project of Peoples Watch/Institute of
Human Rights Education on developing a coordinated human rights curriculum in schools all over West Bengal, India.

The project has the following specific objectives:• To establish and form active network with theSchool Education Department, Governmentof West Bengal to work together in introducing human rights education in schools• To train and enhance the capacity of teachers
to develop innovative and best methodologies in imparting the module on humanrights to students and in preparing themfor the three-year Human Rights Programwith knowledge, attitude and skills regarding
rights and values• To have regular classes in human rights thatwill develop the students’ full capacity toface the reality of the outside world, and to
make the students imbibe a culture of humanrights• To activate students’ groups in secondary
schools to understand and tackle social
problems• To organize public awareness and consultations with different actors and collaborate
with other agencies in the city of Kolkata
to push the issue of including human rights
education in the school curriculum.

Progress madeAfter a series of meetings, the Commissionerof School Education (Mr. A.S. Biswasa) in West
Bengal agreed to collaborate in the project.
Several schools were selected, with the help of
the District Inspectors of Education, for theproject in four districts:-	����������������������������
Kolkata – twenty one schools-	����������������������������������
North 24 Parganas – twelve schools-	�������������������������������South 24 Parganas – ten schools-	����������������������������
Howrah Hoogly – two schools.
By November 2006, the selected schools
were composed of six government schools,
twenty-two government-sponsored schools
and twenty-two government-aided-cum-privateschools.

Program structures
An eight-member State Curriculum Committee, comprising of teachers from the schools,
was formed to assist the implementation ofthe program. The Committee adapted HumanRights Education – An Introduction Module-1
to the context of West Bengal with reference53

54  HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION IN ASIAN SCHOOLS

from the Value Education Books (We are theWorld) and the teaching methodology provided
in The Basic Plan–Individual Work–Group Work– Feedback–Analysis and Decision to Change. TheCommittee planned to print and distribute toschools three thousand copies of the English
module and five thousand five hundred copiesof the Bengali-version of the module.
A seven-member State Resource Team wasformed to train and enhance the teachers’ skills
in building innovative and best methodologies
in imparting the module of human rights tothe students and to prepare them for the threeyear human rights program with knowledge,
attitude and skills regarding rights and values.
Two members of the Team attended a national
training of trainers at the Center for Social
Justice - Ahmedabad.
A State Advisory Committee was also
formed and met on 24 November 2006 to assist
in the advocacy with the government on humanrights education in schools and to improve
the quality of the program with its inputs andvaluable suggestions. The State Advisory Committee comprises of eleven members of eminent
personalities in the Education Department,
Juvenile Justice Board, Child Welfare Commission, and the Judiciary. The members of theCommittee suggested the following:• Inclusion of more schools in the coming
school year (2007-2008)• Expansion of the program to more schools
in the district as suggested by a member
who is also the Education Officer in thearea• Incorporation of training on human rights
education in the teacher training programs in Bachelor of Education course
and teacher training courses in training
colleges• Involvement of the State Minister in-chargeof secondary education• Inclusion of human rights classes as value
education classes.

Seminar-cum-orientation program
Loreto School-Sealdah held the state-level
introductory seminar-cum-headmasters orientation program on 18 July 2006. This was thefirst tentative step in the effort to have a humanrights syllabus in all West Bengal schools. The
seminar had the following objectives:• To introduce the need for human rights
education in schools• To bring together likeminded stakeholders
who would network with Loreto SchoolSealdah in introducing human rights education in the school curriculum• To introduce the Methodology of Teaching– Basic Plan to the Headmasters along withclassroom demonstration.
The program was a full day event withshowing of videos, open house discussions andteaching demonstration. It was a testament to
the desire of educators in West Bengal to promote human rights in schools.
During the opening ceremonies, the Minister in charge of the Department of Law and
the Judiciary, Government of West Bengal (Mr.
Rabilal Maitra) spoke of the importance ofmaking the people become aware of their human rights, declared his objective of making it
happen (particularly for the students) and thus
appealed to everyone to provide suggestions on
how it can be done.
The Executive Director of People’s Watch(Mr. Henri Tiphagne) explained the historicaldevelopment of the human rights education program, which started when a group of teachers
being trained by the organization asked about
the relevance of human rights to their classes.
He explained that human rights form part of theschool curriculum as an integral and helpful partof children’s development. This view answers
the suspicion of parents about any additional
matter including human rights being taught totheir children regarding their direct academic
relevance. He also cited the example of a childas a force for change with the experience of a

Human Rights Education in Schools — Project Implementation  55

boy who had to brave three times the scolding
and physical abuse by an old woman in order toprevent her from committing female infanticide.
He emphasized that human rights education
should not merely impart knowledge and skills,
but also impart the urge to use them.
The Chairperson of the Institute of HumanRights Education (V. Vasanti Devi, PhD) spoke
about human rights education as a force tocombat the increasingly self-centered education
children receive, and to create a generation witha deep awareness of human dignity. She said
that Loreto School-Sealdah is doing this not byteaching children human rights but by giving
them time to think about the issues and thenby reaching their own decisions fulfill their own
potential. She also said that the urge to fight forhuman rights would develop naturally alongside
the correct kind of human rights education.
The final speaker, the Director of the Social
Welfare, Government of West Bengal, spoke
about the Convention on the Rights of theChild and the basic rights to survival, protection, development and participation. He
likewise acknowledged the difficult nature ofhuman rights education.
An audio-visual session started with theshowing of a video on the life of Kali, one of
the children involved in Loreto School-Sealdah’s
Rainbow Program. The video showed theembedment of human rights into the programthat enabled the dignity and spirit of one of its
participants to flourish.
The video showing was followed by a talkof Sr. M. Cyril about the human rights syllabusof Loreto Sealdah. She explained human rights
education as training children to reach out beyond themselves for one moment and to see therest of the world. She slowly discussed each of
the stages of a value education class explaining
first what each stage meant and required of theteacher, and then described its effect and spirit.
She described the teacher’s main task of picking
up on good and bad thought patterns and getting
the children themselves to explore the reasoning
and effects behind them, once again highlighting

the important role the children themselves must
play in receiving this education.
The talk of Sr. M. Cyril was followed bya powerpoint presentation on the process bywhich human rights education encourages
the growth of a compassionate human spirit.
Human rights education must be a long term
program, preferably starting when the child isold enough to comprehend basic abstract concepts and ending in Class 10 or 12. It should
always take place in an organized participatory
framework, encouraging the child to develop
skills to think for themselves in a structured
manner, and to amass personal knowledge andstock of information.
A module demonstration involving forty five
Class 6 students of Loreto School-Sealdah wasundertaken to highlight the methods of teaching
human rights and allow the participants to witness how students react to a chapter (Needs andDesires) in the Human Rights Education – An Introduction Module-1. The students demonstrated
the four phases of the teaching process:a. Individual work – the students engaged insilent reading of two passages on needs anddesires, considering the concepts of need anddesire. They were then given certain questions to think about the passages in silence.
The room was quiet while the students
worked away forming their own opinions;b . Group work – the students formed six small
groups and discussed the difference between
need and desire. They were asked to think ofpeople who were denied basic needs. They
then prepared to do a role play to present
their discussions.
c. Feedback – due to time constraint only twogroups could do the role play. One grouphighlighted the needs of the beggars, another group focused on abused wife.
d. Analysis - the teachers asked questions at
the end of each role play to encourage thestudents to explain the reasons behind theirrespective stories in the role play, and also
asked the rest of the students to commenton the bigger issues behind each play.

56  HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION IN ASIAN SCHOOLSOne student made a comment, in relation tothe play on abused wife, that her (wife’s) suffering could be linked to Sita (a woman in ancientIndian literature) who does not protest the badtreatment she receives, and the insistence ofIndian culture that young women emulate her.
The role play presented two points: the beginning of formation of opinion on rights by thestudents of Class 6; and the questioning of an
accepted doctrine in society which oppresses
some rights that the students have learned.
Fifty-six Headmasters from governmentsponsored and government-aided schools
attended the workshop. They appreciated theevent, and said that the internalization of humanrights through human rights education would
allow students to understand rights-based issues and act when they came across humanrights violations. They pledged their involvement in the program, and promised to send
their teachers for training. They also agreed todevelop through a consultative process a school
syllabus on human rights fitted to the contextof West Bengal.
In a country with such divergent experienceof the condition of life, a positive step was felt.
By starting human rights education in theirschools, the Headmasters will soon find themselves under pressure from their own students
to tackle social problems. Schools with a humanrights class will soon find they are becoming
more and more involved with improving thecommunity.
In this way, the success of the meeting andthe interest of the gathered Headmasters bodewell for a statewide school curriculum which
includes human rights classes aimed at creatingand maintaining social justice for all. This was
only the first tentative step in what would be along process of consultation and compromise.
The fact that human rights education was accepted by the Headmasters gave all those whowork for it the hope that a human rights syllabus
would eventually play an integral role in all West
Bengal schools.

Teacher training
Eighty-eight teachers from fifty schools weretrained in a five-day training workshop held on
18-23 May 2007. The training dealt with thedevelopment of capacity to use innovative andbest methodologies in imparting the humanrights education module to students. The training helped motivate and train the teachers in theskills of teaching the module which has beendeveloped in Tamil Nadu and adapted to theWest Bengal context. The teachers worked on
the development of human rights lesson plans
using the first six chapters of the module.

Human rights classes
Human rights classes started in all the fifty
schools under the program from September
2006 onward. Some teachers who were trained
first finished three chapters of the Module byDecember 2006. Other teachers who weretrained afterward started in November and finished one or two chapters by December 2006.
The state coordinator visited three schools(one school each in North 24 Parganas, South
24 Parganas and Kolkata districts) that havestarted the human rights classes and received
feedback from them.

Capacity building workshop
The state coordinator for the West Bengal
program attended a capacity-building workshop on report writing and documentation.
The three-day workshop equipped all thestate coordinators of the programs in different
states with reporting skills, and oriented on thecontent of, and need for, a good and quality
program report. An in-depth understanding of
The Logical Framework Analysis was one of
the main learnings.

Human Rights Education in Schools — Project Implementation  57

Review and planning meetings

Constraints and challenges

The state coordinator attended two review
and planning meetings to know in detail theprocess run by People’s Watch, its organizationin general, its reach-out programs, and also theprogram in the other ten states. The meeting
reviewed the first eight months of experiencein implementing the program in the differentstates. The review gave an insight on all thegood work done in all the states, their challenges and constraints. The meeting included
discussion of the problems encountered andfinding solutions through the experiences instates whose programs have been proceedingin great momentum. The meeting ended withthe preparation of national- and state-level plansfor the following year (2007).

The implementation of the program faces
a number of constraints and challenges. One
major challenge refers to the school curriculum.
The West Bengal government added two more
required subjects – Environmental Studies(EVS) and Life Style Education. This gives
hardly anytime for the students to learn about
values and rights and develop them.
Because the timetable for the academic
year 2006-2007 has already been set in March
2006, the addition of an extra class of humanrights education was difficult. The Headmasters
agreed in March 2007 to allot one class per weekin the new academic session of 2007- 2008.
Meanwhile the human rights classes are being
done in the General Knowledge (GK) period
or the Moral Science period.

Program implementation results
The teacher-training workshop equipped
the teachers with the best models of practice ofhuman rights education and developed in themthe skills of teaching the module. The methodology of imparting the lessons based on theBasic Plan Plan – Individual Work – Group Work– Feedback – Analysis and Decision to Change has
been incorporated in all the lessons.
The methodology of the Basic Plan has enhanced and benefited not only the teachers but
the students as well. This was seen in the active
involvement of all the students in the classes.
The students made sure that they did not missout the human rights period.
The students were happy with the content
and showed a great progress. Changes in theirlives were visible in their attendance of humanrights classes.
The inclusion of government schools led
to the initiation of a value education class forhuman rights in the school curriculum. This is
one step towards more consultations and meetings for development of school curriculum thatmakes children face the real new world.

Concluding note
Human rights education has to be seen as
central to widening the students’ capacity todeal with their brave new world, as training
them to reach out beyond themselves for one
moment and see the rest of the world. The
teacher’s main task includes picking up on goodand bad thought patterns among students, getting them to explore the reasoning and effects
behind them, and highlighting the importantrole they themselves must play in receiving thiseducation. The village schools where often one
class consists of one hundred fifty students toone teacher, and even one or two periods of human rights education will benefit not only thestudents but also their teachers. The approachshould not only sensitize the students to humanrights, but also allow them to internalize them.
It is this internalization that is so central to thesuccess of a human rights education program,as it is internalization that allows students tounderstand rights-based issues and act when
they come across human rights violations.