HREA has been contracted by the Commonwealth Secretariat to further assist the government of Mauritius with the implementation of a national human rights education curriculum. In the first phase of this collaboration, HREA assisted the government of Mauritius to integrate human rights education into its secondary school curricula during 2011-2013, which included a desk review of existing educational policies, curricula and learning materials/textbooks for secondary education in schools in Mauritius. A field visit was undertaken to conduct three focus group sessions with teams who worked on the pre-primary curriculum framework, teams who worked on the primary curriculum framework, and a third group who worked on the secondary curriculum framework, resulting in a report with recommendations.
In October 2013, during the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) examination in which the human rights records of all UN member states are reviewed, Mauritius accepted the recommendations to: “Request the international community to provide assistance to the project of incorporating human rights in the school curriculum”, and to “Intensify the efforts to integrate human rights education in the national curriculum”.
In the Second Phase, HREA will:
– provide technical assistance to the Government of Mauritius in support of its implementation of the UPR recommendations in relation to human rights education in schools;
– create awareness of the UPR as a mechanism to promote children’s rights in Mauritius, specifically to promote an environment for holistic child protection and development; and
– provide the necessary capacity development tools to local authorities and schools in Mauritius to enable the successful integration of HRE into secondary school curricula and teaching.
Mauritius is a member of the Commonwealth, a voluntary association of 53 countries that support each other and work together towards shared goals in democracy and development.