Impart human rights education in schools: NHRC

Kathmandu, April 25

The National Human Rights Commission has stressed the need to incorporate human rights education into the school-level curriculum.

In a consultation meeting with stakeholders today, the rights watchdog said the school sector could play a crucial role in establishing human rights culture in every household as envisaged by the constitutional body.

The NHRC has conceived its own slogan ‘Human rights for all in every household, a base of peace and development,’ since long and it aims to advance the movement against gender inequality, violence against women and abuse, torture, human trafficking and ensure effortless access of general people to basic needs such as shelter, healthcare and education.

The NHRC said the consultation meeting with representatives from the Ministry of Education, Curriculum Development Centre and educationists was held to discuss the issues of human rights education necessary to be included in school curriculum before making recommendation to the government.

NHRC Chair Anup Raj Sharma said topics that could help control and discourage social and cultural anomalies, including caste discrimination and violence against women required to be incorporated into school curriculum.

NHRC member Govind Sharma Paudyal informed that the rights watchdog could exercise the power to recommend the government to include human right education in school and college level curriculum in accordance with the NHRC Act. “The topics of human rights can be incorporated into subjects like literature, geography and social studies from various perspectives,” he said.

Experts suggested that NHRC could conduct training on human rights for schoolteachers to make teaching-learning activities more effective besides including human rights issues in the curriculum. According to the rights watchdog, inclusion of human rights education in curriculum could be utilised as an opportunity to ensure all children develop a good understanding and appreciation for human rights from the beginning.