GCED in Higher Education in the Arab Region Grassroots Experiences and Voices from Students and Professors

Global Citizenship Education (GCED) plays a key role in empowering children and youth with the skills enabling them to engage in the development of more peaceful, just, inclusive and sustainable societies.

Even though education programmes under the title of 'GCED' are not prevalent in the Arab region, the core values of GCED, such as creativity, innovation, commitment to peace, human rights and sustainable development, are already present in curricula, learning contents and pedagogical activities at school or national level across the region. Considering that GCED is a life-long process and needs to be mainstreamed at all ages, higher education institutions (HEI) are prominent actors in mainstreaming its values. UNESCO and a number of HEI have been dedicated to promoting GCED in the Arab countries for long.

Against this backdrop, the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Education in the Arab States, in Beirut - Lebanon, is convening an online meeting on 28 October 2021 (15:00 - 16:30 (Beirut time) / 14:00 - 15:30 (Cairo time) / 13:00 - 14:30 (Rabat time) to showcase grassroots experiences from the Arab region, and discuss how GCED can be further mainstreamed in Arab universities.

On this occasion, Mariam El Harras, student from the Tangier National School of Business and Management and student at the Abdelmalek Essaadi University in Morocco, will share her experience -as a good practice in advancing GCED in higher education in the Arab region- in the framework of the DIRE-MED project, a Capacity Building project that has been coordinated by UNIMED.

DIRE-MED aimed to create a framework of cooperation to facilitate exchanges of students, academic and administrative staff in the Mediterranean Basin, as well as to stimulate university-society cooperation through the promotion of intercultural dialogue and by building up the capacity of International relations offices staff from HEIs.

Here, you will find all information to participate and more details on the initiative.