UNODC Education for Justice initiative engage teachers, school children and students on rule of law issues

While it is possible to read up on these issues on your own, teaching these issues, including today’s most crucial threats, to children at youth in a school settings is a tricky matter.

In response to this challenge, UNODC “Education for Justice (E4J)” initiative has set out activities and generated educational resources surrounding crime, justice, and the rule of law for primary, secondary and tertiary education levels. The resources are developed for teachers to support their efforts to transmit knowledge and create a deeper understanding of the subject areas of crime prevention and criminal justice, anti-corruption, organized crime, trafficking in persons and smuggling of migrants, firearms, cybercrime, wildlife crime, counter-terrorism as well as integrity and ethics.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Education of Turkmenistan, along with one secondary school and three Universities, including the Turkmen State University expressed their interest back in summer of 2021 to use UNODC E4J teaching methodology and introducing these subjects into their curriculum. 

To proceed with the implementation, UNODC in partnership with Winrock International, the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) and United Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia (UNRCCA) project “Towards a comprehensive implementation of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy (UNGCTS) in Central Asia – Phase IV”, USAID program "Safe Migration in Central Asia" and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Education of Turkmenistan launched a series of training courses for school and university teachers of Turkmenistan.

Over 30 teachers obtained knowledge and skills on how to present issues in the field of fighting trafficking in persons, combatting terrorism, cybercrime to the younger generation.

Mr. Koen Marquering, International Manager of Criminal Justice Programme for UNODC in Central Asia outlined in his opening speech that education for children and young people plays an important role in shaping the values of future generations, creating a collective consciousness, restructuring public preferences, supplementing them with the necessary skills to form future generations respect for the law, promote the principles of the rule, and prevent and prevent crime.

“Our Education for Justice initiative is the most innovative and comprehensive educational tool to help achieve these goals, as the integration of crime prevention and criminal justice principles into the education system at all levels is critical in building long-term approaches in the fight against crime and violence,” Mr. Marquering concluded.

Speaking at the training, Ms. Karina Timshina, UNOCT Regional coordination officer emphasized that since 2011, the UNOCT and UNRCCA have been assisting the countries of Central Asia in the development of a Regional Strategy to Counter Terrorism and Violent Extremism, the so-called Joint Action Plan.

“And education is one of the key points in this paper. It calls on the countries of Central Asia to implement educational initiatives to counter these phenomena. The adoption of an updated version of this document is scheduled for March this year at a high-level conference to be held in Tashkent and representatives of Turkmenistan will also participate in it”, she noted.

The E4J resources have been created by UNODC and a variety of partners, ranging from governments to academic and non-governmental organizations, as well as in partnership with UNESCO, and involving above all the ultimate target audience: teachers and students.

“The UNODC, UNOCT programmes and the USAID programme "Safe Migration in Central Asia" in Turkmenistan are looking forward to long-term and systematic cooperation in incorporating these issues into the curricula of the universities and schools invited to participate in our event”, stated Ms. Ellie Valentine, head of the Winrock International in Central Asia.

The participants highly appreciated the training course, which provided a much-needed supporting materials for students and pupils to promote further a culture that supports the rule of law, crime prevention and criminal justice and expressed interest in future cooperation. It is planned that the group of trained instructors will be the first cohort teachers in Turkmenistan to receive “Education4Justice” certification, leading to further prospect of cascading the newly gained skills to other teachers and rolling-out of the training program to other educational establishment.