Incentives for civic education in West Africa

From the 24th to 29th of June 2012 a West African delegation visited the Federal Republic of Germany.  The study tour stems from an increased focus of the HSF’s on activities fostering the stronger engagement of West African countries in civic education.

 The purpose of the mission was to offer ideas to the participants how civic education curricula and institutions could potentially be build up in their home countries. The delegation members consisted of Mrs. Charlotte Osei (Chairman of the National Commission for Civic Education – Ghana), Mrs. Jocelyne Vokouma – (Permanent Secretary of Labo Citoyenneté – Burkina Faso), Mr. Jérémie Dovonou (Technical advisor for education and civic education at the Ministry for Administrative and Institutional Reforms – Benin) and Mr. Komlan Mensah Awuno (General Director of Public Service at the Ministry for Public Affairs and Administrative Reforms – Togo). Mrs. Julia Berger, Program Officer/ Deputy Director Ghana accompanied the group throughout their trip.

On their first stop in Bonn the delegation participated at the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum 2012 bearing the title “Culture, Education, Media – Shaping a sustainable world”. The participants thereby had the opportunity to engage in a range of Working Group sessions and panel discussions, most notable among them a presentation made by Guido Westerwelle, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany. In his speech he emphasized the growing importance of education in a competitive globalised world, particularly for third world countries with their large proportion of young people. Other topics covered by the were the role (social) media can play in order to open up access to education to a larger share of citizens as well as the Unesco decade of Education for Sustainable Development. The latter includes a concept of sustainability which does not only take common aspects such as environment and economy into consideration, but also includes culture and society as factors of sustainability. This approach might be useful for the participants in formulating future educational concepts.

The main activity of the journey formed a visit at the Federal Agency for Civic Education in Bonn, the Academy for Civic Education in Tutzing as well as a workshop on “Civic education in West Africa” at the Headquarters of the Hanns Seidel Foundation in the Bavarian capital of Munich. Participants were given the chance to introduce their concepts of promoting civic education in the own countries. They also got an insight in the scope of work and potential challenges of German institutions working in the field of civic education. Moreover, the participants gained valuable information about the organizational and financial structure of the German institutions.

The delegation’s active participation during the trip and their expressed intention to lobby for a stronger commitment of civic education in their various countries forms a solid basis for future activities.