Mainstreaming Child Rights in Teacher Training colleges

Introduction

Recognizing that the success of our programs requires a common understanding among teachers about their roles and duties towards the implementation of the UNCRC in schools, we work in partnership with the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport and Teacher Training Colleges to include child rights-related training into the official training program for pre-service teachers.

Objective

We aim to mainstream concepts of child rights, child participation, inclusive education, positive discipline in schools and prevention of trafficking and sexual exploitation of children by integrating these concepts into regional and provincial Teacher Training Colleges.

How we work

We help pre-service teachers become child-friendly teachers by building the capacity of Teaching Training College lecturers to educate future teachers about child rights and related issues, including child participation, inclusive education, positive discipline in schools and prevention of trafficking and sexual exploitation.

We produce and distribute training manuals and teacher guidebooks about these issues, which are specially designed for Teacher Training College lecturers and pre-service teachers which officially recognized by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport. These training resources are made available to Teacher Training Departments, teacher training lecturers and pre-service teachers.

We also conduct training sessions for lecturers and provide ongoing support to them so that they may effectively transfer their knowledge to pre-service teachers in their respective institutions.

Where we work

We work in partnership with the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport's Teacher Training Department and all Teacher Training Centers through the country. The project will benefit 750 TTC lecturers, 500 demonstration school teachers, and around 7,000 pre-service teachers.

From Strict To Flexible

My name is Te Chansokunthy, 54, a deputy-director of RTTC Kandal province. I have been involved with Child Rights Foundation (CRF) since 2006 in Mainstreaming Child Rights in Teacher Training Center program. I am actively involved in many activities such as meetings and training workshops. I'm a core trainer on Child Rights to train other school personnel and teacher trainees at my center.

Working with CRF, makes me change my attitude from very strict to be flexible. Before as I can remember when a student made something wrong violating the internal regulations or did not have proper attitude I always blamed them or punished them or stopped them from going to school. But now when the student makes a mistake I advise them step by step, for 2 or 3 times and then meet their parents or guardian to assist them.

The main reason that makes me change is my participation in training on Child Rights Implementation in Schools which was conducted by CRF. Topics that have most interested me are Positive Discipline Education and Creating Internal Regulations by Involving Students and Students' Parents.