In 2014 UNICEF’s Private Fundraising and Partnerships Division (PFP) published the Child Rights Education Toolkit which outlines a rights-based approach to developing child rights education (CRE) with a focus on formal education in early childhood education settings, primary and secondary schools. UNICEF PFP also commissioned the Centre for Children’s Rights in Queen’s University Belfast to undertake a baseline survey of CRE across countries with National Committee presence. The research was designed around the following questions:
1. To what extent are countries with a National Committee presence implementing CRE?
2. Where CRE implementation is advanced, what factors have supported this process?
3. Where CRE implementation is not advanced, what factors are hindering implementation?
The research consisted of two strands of activity, first an on-line survey and secondly a series of case studies. The on-line survey was designed to collect data in relation to these three research questions and the survey questions were constructed around a series of themes identified in an initial literature review. The survey was distributed to national experts (identified by UNICEF National Committees) and provides an overview of the extent to which CRE is embedded in formal education settings and teacher education in 26 countries. These responses were enhanced with additional desk research to provide an overview of CRE in each country. The case studies were constructed to explore specific aspects of work in seven countries with a National Committee presence
