Human Rights Education in Finland Human Rights Education in Finland THE HUMAN RIGHTS CENTRE is an autonomous and independent expert institution. it promotes the imple- mentation of fundamental and human rights and increases cooperation and exchange of information between human rights actors in Finland. The Human Rights Centre was established in 2012, and it is administratively connected to the Office of the Parliamentary Ombudsman. Illustrations: Ilja Karsikas / Napa Illustration ISBN 978-952-68124-1-0 Helsinki 2014 Table of contents Introduction 4 Foreword 5 What are human rights? 9 What is human rights education? 17 Recommendations of the Human Rights Delegation 23 Human rights education and training in different education sectors 36 Human rights education in government policy programmes and plans for education and child and youth work 37 Early childhood education 42 Basic education 46 General upper secondary education 49 Vocational education and training 52 Polytechnics 54 Universities 57 State educational institutions and colleges 61 Continuing education for public servants 64 Liberal Adult Education 68 Appendices 71 Presentations of the authors 72 Abbreviations 74 Conventions, acts and other documents 75 SUOSITUKSET 1 Introduction 4 FOREWORD Foreword HUMAN rights education is a crucial require- education and training in the Finnish education ment for the development of human rights system immediately after the onset of its opera- awareness and ultimately for the realisation of tions. This decision was motivated both by the human rights. Consequently, the Human Rights centre’s mandate and by the evaluations on the Centre decided already at the onset of its op- state of human rights education in Finland pre- erations to carry out this baseline study on the sented in previous government reports on the implementation of human rights education and human rights policy and in the National Action training in the Finnish education system. Plan on Fundamental and Human Rights. According to the UN Declaration on Human These evaluations have emphasised the im- Rights Education and Training (A/RES/66/137) portance of human rights education and train- adopted unanimously by the UN General ing both for the exercise of public authority and Assembly, everyone has the right to receive for the realisation of the rights of the individual information on human rights and fundamental (see e.g. the Report on Human Rights Policy, freedoms. States have the primary responsi- Government Report to the Parliament on the bility to provide human rights education and Human Rights Policy of Finland 2009). On the training. other hand, non-governmental organisations, The promotion of human rights education which have for long been key actors in the field and training is also one of the central statutory of human rights education, have called for the tasks of the Human Rights Centre, which was state to take on a stronger responsibility for the established in 2012 and assigned to promote provision of human rights training. fundamental and human rights. The Human International human rights monitoring Rights Centre, together with its subordinate bodies have also noticed this matter, such as Human Rights Delegation with a broad repre- the Committee on the Rights of the Child and sentation of national human rights actors, and the Human Rights Committee, which monitor the Parliamentary Ombudsman form a national the implementation of the Convention on the human rights institution (NHRI) which complies Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Covenant on with the UN criteria known as the Paris Princi- Civil and Political Rights (CCPR), respectively. It ples. The Human Rights Centre is administra- was also brought up in the Human Rights Coun- tively connected to the Office of the Parliamen- cil during the consideration of Finland’s second tary Ombudsman. report for the Universal Periodic Review (UPR). The Centre decided to conduct a baseline Until now a proper survey on the amount, study on the implementation of human rights extent or quality of human rights training has 5 FOREWORD not been carried out in Finland. Instead, studies The definition of human rights education have been conducted on democracy education and training is included in Article 2 of the and global education (see e.g. Democracy Re- declaration, according to which human rights port, the Finnish National Board of Education, education comprises all educational, training, 2011:27, and Evaluation of the Global Educa- information, awareness-raising and learning tion 2010 Programme, the Ministry of Educa- activities aimed at promoting universal respect tion and Culture, 2011:13). The UN member for human rights and fundamental freedoms states have been asked to carry out compre- and thus, inter alia, contributing to the preven- hensive baseline studies on the state of human tion of human rights violations. (This topic is rights education and training in the framework discussed more in detail in the article What is of the UN Decade for Human Rights Education human rights education?) (1995-2004) and the UN World Programme for Article 2(2) of the declaration defines hu- Human Rights Education. These studies would man rights education further through its con- then serve as a basis and first step for drafting tent and objectives. According to this article, national human rights action plans. human rights education encompasses educa- tion on: On the definition of human rights • values underpinning human rights (e.g. education and training inviolability of human dignity and equal The fact that human rights education is an ex- treatment) tensive and slightly ambiguous concept posed • norms (e.g. the Universal Declaration of challenges to defining the focuses for the study. Human Rights and international conventions, It was also necessary to consider the con- and fundamental rights on the national level) cept’s relation to the above-mentioned related • mechanisms (national and international concepts of democracy and global education monitoring and legal redress mechanisms, and to citizenship and multicultural education, e.g. the state obligation to ensure the to projects promoting human rights, as well as realisation of human rights, the right of an to various subjects, such as ethics, life philoso- individual to assert their human rights and to phy, philosophy and social sciences. file complaints concerning alleged violations The fact that these concepts are partly of the rights, and to receive compensation, overlapping cannot and should not be totally the state obligation to report on the human avoided. rights situation to international bodies). Owing to the normative, binding and uni- versal character of human rights, it was deemed Education should also justified and appropriate to apply in this study the first official international definition of hu- • take place in a way that respects human man rights education that is laid down in the rights (respect for the rights of both educa- above-mentioned UN Declaration on Human tors/teachers and learners/students; e.g. Rights Education and Training. participatory and inclusive environments and This definition builds on the earlier work methods) carried out under the UN World Programme • empower people for the realisation of hu- for Human Rights Education. It can be said to man rights (e.g. through encouraging peo- represent the current conception of the con- ple to claim their rights and intervene in the tent of human rights education and training in violations of other people’s human rights). international law. However, the declaration is not legally binding on states. 6 FOREWORD Carrying out the study A national baseline study published by the Irish examines the content of human rights teaching Human Rights Commission in 2011 served as a in the education sector concerned. model for this study (cf. Human Rights Educa- The sections also assess the professional tion in Ireland – An Overview, Irish Human Rights competences of teachers, trainers and educa- Commission 2011). Our Irish colleagues also tors for human rights education. On the other gave us practical advice and valuable insights hand, it was realised already in the planning for designing and implementing the study. stage of this study that evaluating the quality or In addition to Ireland, national baseline effectiveness of teaching would be too chal- studies on human rights education have, dur- lenging a task. ing recent years, been conducted in Australia, The study was set the objective of giving an Armenia and Bangladesh, for example. overview of the current state of human rights It was natural to divide the study into sec- education and training. At the same time, it tions dealing with different education sec- aims to provide a basis for drafting a (possible) tors. The sectors were defined on the basis of national human rights education action plan. the definitions established by the Ministry of In other words, the study also looks into future Education and Culture and the Finnish National development needs and plans. Board of Education. For this purpose, the authors were requested Due to the limited personnel resources of to evaluate the possibilities, challenges and ob- the Human Rights Centre and the broad field stacles of human rights education in the sector of the review, the Centre decided to implement concerned and make concrete action proposals the study as a collection of articles, and thus we for developing human rights education. ordered articles on each sector from experts in The draft proposals drawn up from these different education sectors and human rights proposals were dealt twice at the Human Rights education. Delegation. The general recommendations for The authors were advised to provide a good promoting human rights education and train- overview of human rights education in the ing in Finland adopted by the Human Rights education sector concerned through examin- Delegation are published as part of this study. ing how the elements of the above-mentioned It should be noted here that the funding definition of human rights education, i.e.