Global Citizenship Concepts in the Curricula of Four Countries

Abstract

This report details the presence of Global Citizenship Education (GCED) concepts in the education systems of four countries: Cambodia, Colombia, Mongolia and Uganda. It highlights the main findings of eight reports: four expert reports, which predominately analyse curriculum content, and four situational analysis reports, which take a broader view and detailsome of the country-specific challenges and opportunities with regard to GCED. Findings reveal the presence of GCED concepts across the curricula of the four countries. In addition to cognitive content related to GCED, competency-based content is also found present within the curricula of these countries. However, the majority of this content can only be indirectly linked to GCED, and it is better interpreted as part of the more traditional civics or citizenship education approach. As such, it generally lacks a global perspective and does not engage with all key themes of GCED. Furthermore, this content is often concentrated at the lower and upper secondary levels, instead of being equally distributed across all grade levels. This is particularly true in the case of behaviour-based competencies. Findings also reveal challenges beyond the curriculum. These include lack of teacher training and lack of support to implement GCED, which are concerns expressed by stakeholders in all four countries. A lack of GCED content in textbooks and lack of supplementary materials were also found to be issues. The report concludes with recommendations regarding the effective implementation of GCED within curricula. Among others, the report suggests the transversal integration of GCED - across the curriculum at all grade levels, while at the same time, actors from all levels of the education system, ranging from central government to teachers, should be engaged to ensure the use of complementary learning materials, pedagogies and assessment techniques.