ADEA Working Group participates in Technical Consultation Meeting on Global Citizenship Education (GCE) in Seoul, Republic of Korea

UNESCO, the Republic of Korea's Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Education, and the Asia-Pacific Centre of Education for International Understanding (APCEIU) invited ADEA to participate in a Technical Consultative Meeting held in Seoul, Korea from 9 – 10 September, 2013. ADEA was represented by its Working Group on Education Management and Policy Support (WG EMPS) in the person of Mr. Shem Bodo, a member of the Working Group. The purpose of the meeting was to review existing initiatives and address the conceptual and definitional issues surrounding the concept of global citizenship education (GCE). ADEA shared its experience and expertise on peace education in Africa, within the framework of the ICQN on Peace Education, and as one of the components of GCE across the world. The meeting developed an operational framework to guide future work in this area. Discussions also centred on the need to contextualize GCE in contemporary and traditional terms, and the question of citizenship of Africans after the advent of colonialism and the achievement of full independence of African states was one of the issues that emerged from the meeting. The meeting observed that values and good governance can be seen as beneficiaries of GCE. Participants also re-enforced the need to understand education in a holistic manner, comprising formal, non-formal and informal components. This is in addition to acknowledging the important role of teachers as well as the media as key to the development and implementation of GCE. Speakers at the meeting included Soo-Hyang Choi, Director of UNESCO`s Division for Peace and Sustainable Development, Mr. Qian Tang, UNESCO`s Assistant Director-General for Education, Shin Dong-Ik, a representative from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Korea, Young-Soon Kang, Director General at the International Cooperation Bureau of the Korean Ministry of Education, and Chung Utak, APCEIU Director. Mr. Shem Bodo was a discussant in one of the sessions on mapping issues and trends.