Organizers: Yusuf Sayed and Mario Novelli, University of Sussex
Discussant: Professor Michelle Schweisfurth, University fo Glasgow
importance of teachers is underscored by the fact that from a public expenditure point of view they are the single most important investment in education, and that after home background, they are the crucial factor in learning attainment. Yet, as we argue, their role as agents of peace and social cohesion is underexplored. This focus is all the more imperative in the context of the SDG 2030 agenda which commits national government’s and international actors ‘By 2030, (to) substantially increase the supply of qualified teachers, including through international cooperation for teacher training in developing countries, especially least developed countries and small island developing States’ .Quality education and teaching is particularly vital in conflict affected societies emerging. Classrooms can be highly charged as children and young people from different backgrounds bring the legacies of hurt, trauma and prejudice in the wider community into schools. In such situations quality teachers require skills and competences to ensure that they act as agents of positive change and transformation. This SDG for education has as one of its core targets:
This symposium addresses several issues suitable to the sub-theme of Pedagogies for Sustainable Development and Learning and Teaching for Sustainable Development as the overarching conference theme. Specifically, we focus on teacher agency for peace and and social cohesion and how has this been integrated into broader policies and practices in conflict-affected environments like South Africa and Rwanda.
Drawing on a framing of peacebuilding and social cohesion that goes beyond merely a security-type tackling of direct violence and social disruption, the panel explores various educational tensions that affect teachers in areas with histories of conflict, and asks how encouraging teacher agency may lead to a more sustainable and just peace as well as a socially cohesive society. Collectively these papers highlight the contextual and situational complexities facing teachers in realising their agency for peacebuilding. The symposium papers draw on empirical research from two major multi-country three-year UNICEF and ESRC-funded research projects on teachers, education and peace building.
This symposium will begin with an introduction by the Chair providing an overview of the symposium followed by three individual papers:
- Paper One: Teachers as Agents of Sustainable Peace, Social Cohesion and Development: Theory, Practice & Evidence. Presenter: Yusuf Sayed & Mario Novelli, University of Sussex.
- Paper Two: Teachers as agents of change: promoting peace-building and social cohesion in schools in Rwanda. Presenters. Eugene Ndabaga, Jane Umutoni, and Barthelemy Bizima, University of Rwanda
- Paper Three: Teachers and Social cohesion in South Africa. Presenters: Azeem Badroodien, Yusuf Sayed, Yunus Omar, Lorna Balie. CPUT, South Africa
This paper develops a ‘peace with social justice’ framework to analyse the role of teachers as agents of sustainable peace, social cohesion and development.
This paper examines how teachers have been positioned to promote peace-building and social cohesion in Rwandan schools in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide.
This paper examines the support given to education for peace-building and social cohesion in respect to government policies and the training of teachers in South Africa. It considers how teachers are framed as agents of change in post-Apartheid South Africa. Q&A beginning with reflections by the discussant.
