Citizenship and human rights education help to promote and strengthen the values of democracy, human rights, citizenship, good governance and tolerance as espoused by the Commonwealth in its declaration of principles, the 1991 Harare Declaration. Many Commonwealth member countries have well-established strategies which can be shared with those who have recently introduced or are about to introduce this area.

This conference explores citizenship and human rights education within formal and informal educational settings, with particular emphasis on global aspects. Looking at a range of approaches across the Commonwealth and beyond, and the extent to which they reflect a diversity of cultural, ethnic and religious values, it further considers whether it is possible to agree on a charter for citizens, both newly arriving and long-standing, and the most likely routes to successful implementation of policy and practice within a particular community.

Those facilitating the conference are practitioners and policy makers with considerable experience of all aspects of citizenship and human rights education. The conference is designed to offer many opportunities to participants to develop and strengthen existing networks and to form new ones.

The conference is being planned around presentations, interactive workshops, question and answer sessions and small group discussion. Topics covered include:

• How far can we apply a universal human rights framework in relation to citizenship education? Can education meaningfully take place in a setting excluding certain groups?
• What common challenges do different societies face, and how differently are these tackled? Would it be more helpful to address them through shared knowledge and experience?
• How can we share experiences, positive and negative, and make best use of new communications and technology, including developing a deeper understanding of the role and power of the media?
• How can formal and informal education contribute most effectively, and how can we best share experience of training and delivery?
• What are the roles of government and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and international agencies, particularly in the Commonwealth?  How can we achieve greater synergy between their work?
• What is the particular contribution of the Commonwealth, and how can we build on it in the future?

The programme includes opportunities to visit local schools and projects and to take part in some cultural activities.  The conference is timed to precede the triennial meeting of Commonwealth Education Ministers, which will take place in late October 2003 in Edinburgh, to which it is intended that it will present its outcomes.

PARTICIPANT PROFILE
The participants, who will mainly be drawn from Commonwealth countries, are likely to be educators with a particular interest in human rights and citizenship education in the formal and informal education sectors, policy makers at local and national level, representatives from NGOs and international agencies, practitioners in various fields including the media, and researchers. They will receive a preparatory briefing about the issues covered by the seminar, and will be asked to bring materials and case studies to reflect and represent practice in their communities.